HinesSight

Abortion rights get screwed by health care reform

Ridiculous.

The health care reform bill passed by the House last weekend doesn't allow an abortion to be part of a benefit package bought by anyone who gets a government tax credit to help pay for the insurance.

Put another way:

Abortion would not be paid for in plans offered by a government-run insurance system. Also, people who took federal subsidies to buy insurance would not be able to use the money to buy such coverage.

It's enough to make this progressive scream. Aaaarrrrrggghhh! And I'm not even a woman, nor a man of child-bearing capability.

Along that line, I got a vasectomy before my re-marriage nineteen years ago. I'd had a child in my first marriage. I didn't want another one. My second wife-to-be felt the same way.

But when I went to talk with my family doctor about this, he didn't want to perform a vasectomy. "You're only 40," he said. "What if you want to eventually have another child?"

I told him that I was sure I didn't. He was still very reluctant. That creeped me out. Who was this guy to tell me what I should do with my sperm? I ended up going to another doctor.

This experience gives me some insight into how women feel who want an abortion, yet face roadblocks in getting one. This procedure is legal. So why is it often so difficult to have an abortion?

Because too many people in this country believe that it's OK to stick their noses into other peoples' private lives. Including a distressing number of Democrats who voted for the House abortion amendment.

Apparently women buying plans in the government exchange will be able to purchase an insurance rider that covers abortions. That's better than being excluded from coverage altogether. 

However, I don't see why people who get government help to buy health insurance can't be treated like those who purchase private insurance on their own. After all:

Remember the promises? Reform was about expanding choices, not allowing government to come between you and your doctor, no one will lose their coverage, and if you like your current plan you get to keep it. Apparently being female is a preexisting condition that exempts us from the promises, too.

My Regence Blue Cross of Oregon individual plan seems to include coverage for abortions. It's not crystal clear from the contract that I looked through this afternoon, but there's no mention of abortion in the list of stuff that isn't covered (like cosmetic surgery, massage, and such).

The 2010 health insurance plan for employees of the state of Oregon definitely includes abortion, as do 90% of private insurance plans.

Fortunately, it looks like President Obama recognizes the absurdity of reducing health insurance options for women. He wants the abortion restrictions in the House health care bill changed. 

President Obama suggested Monday that he was not comfortable with abortion restrictions inserted into the House version of major health care legislation, and he prodded Congress to revise them.

...On the one hand, Mr. Obama said, “we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.”

On the other hand, he said, he wanted to make sure “we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” because he had promised that “if you’re happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, it’s not going to change.”

In the end, I suspect Obama will get his way. But it's irritating to see most Republicans in the House, and a loud minority of Democrats, treating women like second-class health care citizens.

A poll found that 71% of voters favor including reproductive services like birth control and abortion as part of health care reform. Hopefully they'll remember this come election time in 2010 and vote out the House members who are ignoring the will of the people.

How disappointed should progressives be about Obama?

It's another election day, albeit a rather low-key off-year one. I'm getting flashbacks to 2008, when it seemed like everything was going to be just fine now.

With Obama our president for the next four years, wouldn't we get the change that we'd be wanting for the past eight? The way things have turned out so far, mostly not.

Nothing Obama has done to date excites me the way his campaign did.

Arianna Huffington nailed this theme in today's "Obama One Year Later: The Audacity of Winning Versus the Timidity of Governing." She made me think, right on, sister!

Indeed, reading the book [by David Plouffe] I often found myself wondering what Candidate Obama would think of President Obama. Would he look at what the White House is doing and say, "that's what I and my supporters worked so hard for?"

How did the candidate who got into the race because he'd decided that "the core leadership had turned rotten" and that "the people were getting hosed" become the president who has decided that the American people can only have as much change as Olympia Snowe will allow?

How did the candidate who told a stadium of supporters in Denver that "the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result" become the president who has surrounded himself with the same old players trying the same old politics, expecting a different result?

Huffington said that she asked Plouffe what happened to the 13 million people on Obama's email list. He replied that its hard to maintain the intensity of the engagement.

Well, I can tell you what usually happens when one of the 13 million, me, gets another of the frequent emails urging me to do something or other (call, write, donate) for some cause or another (health care reform, at the moment).

I delete the message.

The only exception I can remember was right after Obama's speech to the joint session of congress, where he showed some of the energy and passion that marked his campaign. I made a donation to the health care cause after getting a "please help" email.

But otherwise I feel that my wife and I did our bit last year when we worked along with countless other progressives to elect Democrats. Successfully. Now the Dems control the White House and both houses of Congress.

Yet Obama's email machine still wants me to hold house parties about health care reform, to call my Senator and Representative, and send in $25 or more to support TV ads.

Almost always I think, "nope."

The ball's in your court, Obama. When I see you trying as hard to win legislative battles as you fought to be elected president, then I might feel differently.

Like lots of progressives, I'm disappointed that Obama isn't playing the political game as differently as he said he would during the campaign. I like Obama's positions on domestic and foreign policy issues much better than Bush's. But the way he's trying to get his way doesn't seem all that different.

Suck up to special interests. Favor Wall Street over Main Street. Do whatever Israel wants. Assume the United States citizenry is center-right rather than center or center-left.

In Obama's defense, Anna Quindlen reminded me of some realities in her Newsweek piece, "Hope Springs Eternal."

Fom time to time the American people participate in a mass delusion about how their government works. Such a delusion took place exactly a year ago, when a 47-year-old African-American who had once been accorded little chance of prevailing was elected president of the United States.

History will judge Barack Obama over the long haul. But we've learned something in the short term that is simple, obvious, and has less to do with him than with the Founding Fathers. This is a country that often has transformational ambitions but is saddled with an incremental system, a nation built on revolution, then engineered so the revolutionary can rarely take hold.

OK. I get it.

Obama can't snap his fingers and make change happen. He's got to get legislation passed through a Byzantine maze of Congressional committees, power brokers, and massive egos (think Joe Lieberman).

However, tell that to Robert Ellis Gordon, who wrote a terrifically moving guest opinion for the Oregonian editorial page recently, "The Morality of Health Care Reform." Gordon is seriously ill from an autoimmune disease.

What do I know for certain?

That when I took ill in 1989, I discovered what so many other sick people have discovered: Private health insurance companies didn't like me any more. And this was more than mild antipathy. Their behavior led to the inescapable conclusion that for reasons of profit, they wanted me dead and dead soon. To cite one of numerous examples, when my autoimmune disease attacked my blood and I had multiple pulmonary emboli, my private insurer refused to cover the heparin necessary to save my life.

Gordon asks Obama to consider what he is going to feel when he comes to the end of his own life. With the power of the presidency in his hand, did he wield it as effectively as he could for the benefit of humanity? 

You are a man who has everything to live for, Mr. President, and I wish you a long and healthy life.

But difficult as this is for me to say to you, that life will one day end.

And if you have forewarning, if you know your death is coming and wish for a peaceful death, you, too, will have to walk the Via Dolorosa, The Way of Sorrow, The Road of Stilettos. And as you look back on your remarkable life, you'll have to scrutinize the actions you took during month 10 of your fledgling presidency. And if you find that you had an opportunity to "get it right" as you put it in that eloquent address, but chose, instead, to sentence tens if not tens upon tens of millions to live and die on the streets?

Well?

Speaking to you as citizen to citizen, and (if I may be so bold) as friend to friend, it is incumbent on me to pass this along: Health care is, as you have told us, the most profoundly moral issue of our time. And if you cave -- if you fail this test of personal character -- you may find a peaceful death to be elusive.

Cougars benefit Oregon's environment -- no reason to kill them

Wrong, wrong, wrong. That mantra kept being repeated in my increasingly irritated mind as I read Bill Monroe's call to kill more cougars in last Sunday's Oregonian.

Monroe is an outdoors writer. But it's obvious that he doesn't know much about cougars, including their beneficial effect on ecosystems and how non-dangerous they are to people.

Last week my wife and I went to a presentation at the Salem library by Oregon State University professor Bill Ripple called "Linking cougars to butterflies." As a Statesman Journal story said, cougars and other top predators are essential for a balanced natural environment.

(Here's a PDF file of the story, in case the link goes dead: Download Cougar article)

Picture two valleys in Utah's Zion National Park.

One teems with large cottonwood trees, wildflowers, butterflies and so many frogs you need to watch your step along the stream. The other offers fewer cottonwood trees, wildflowers and only a handful of varieties of frogs, butterflies and lizards.

If you ask renowned OSU professor Bill Ripple, the more abundant landscape can be traced back to cougars.

Ripple and OSU Professor Robert Beschta, known for their work on predator, prey and plant relationships, found that cougars play an essential role in maintaining biodiversity. Ripple's latest study with colleagues outlines how smaller predators fill in the gaps left by dwindling larger predator populations and cause bigger financial and environmental headaches.

Monroe wrong-headedly argued that killing more cougars in Oregon will increase the deer and elk population, making hunters happy. There's a couple of problems with this theory.

First, who says that nature has to be managed for the benefit of hunters? Most Oregonians don't hunt. My wife and I, along with a majority of our fellow citizens based on past votes, would much prefer that cougars and wolves be left alive to roam our state.

Second, as noted above, killing top predators opens up the ecosystem door for smaller predators. Fewer cougars means more coyotes, which also kill deer and elk.

Bill Monroe should read the newspaper that he writes for. Earlier this month the Oregonian ran a story about Ripple's research. 

The public and researchers are used to the notion that driving down large predators increases populations of elk and deer, said  William Ripple, an OSU professor of forest ecosystems and society.

Less obvious: The drop in the biggest predators also appears to increase the populations of predators the next step down the chain.

In the past two centuries, the range of the gray wolf in North America has fallen 42 percent, the researchers said, while the range of coyotes has expanded by 40 percent. The cougar's range has dropped 37 percent.

When the researchers ran the numbers, "it was somewhat surprising how dramatic the rise of the mesopredators was as the range of the large carnivores contracted," Ripple said.

The big predators are often targeted by ranchers and others trying to protect livestock or villages, Ripple and OSU assistant professor Clinton Epps said. But the problems created in eliminating top predators can exceed the original problem. 

Monroe promulgated another falsehood when he quoted Jess Messner, who wants dogs to be allowed in cougar hunting again, even though Oregon voters have said "No!" to this twice.

Messner said that cougars are sighted everywhere around Redmond, where he lives. "People fear for their children."

If Monroe was a responsible and knowledgeable reporter, he would have pointed out in his story that since 1990 nobody has been attacked by a cougar in Oregon, and only a few people in the entire United States. 

Doing away with pit bulls would benefit the safety of children a whole lot more than killing cougars would. But rationality isn't much in evidence among those who want to slaughter top predators for no good reason.

Cougars benefit the environment. They are almost never a danger to humans (the risk of an attack is something like 1 in 100 million.) Up to 90% of supposed cougar sightings aren't really cougars at all, but rather kitty cats and such.

I'm not an outdoors writer, yet I know this. You'd think that Bill Monroe would too. However, in his story he uncritically echoed claims that Oregon's cougar population is growing rapidly, based on unverified sightings.

Like I said, Monroe was wrong, wrong, wrong. Hopefully he'd educate himself about cougars before he writes another story about them. I'll help him out:

Here's an OSU media release about Ripple's study, "Cougar Predation Important in Wildland Ecosystems."

And here's the full study report.

Blue Cross of Oregon trying to stop health insurance reform

Just when I thought Regence Blue Cross of Oregon couldn't irritate me further -- after many years of double-digit premium increases, after trying to deny my plan-switch application because of two minor preexisting conditions -- they're now part of an effort to scuttle health care reform.

Deeply irritating. I emailed Regence yesterday, telling them that this subscriber of theirs wasn't happy that health insurers have emerged as the top foe of reform efforts.

I note that you are a member of AHIP, which is actively trying to stop health care reform efforts. Do you support AHIP? If so, you certainly don't represent my wife and me, who have been long-time purchasers of your insurance.

Your web site touts your recognition of the need to improve this country's health care system. Yet if you endorse AHIP's anti-reform lobbying, this is hypocritical. Please let me know your position on the Senate Finance committee's bill that was passed out today, and which is being opposed by the organization you belong to.

I haven't gotten a response from Regence yet.

So I'm assuming that since Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon is a member of AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans), the organization I fork over a lot of money to each month is a backer of AHIP's dishonest attempt to make the Senate reform bill look a lot worse than it really is.

PolitiFact, an independent political bullshit checker, found that the AHIP-sponsored study which claims that premiums will increase steeply if the bill passes was seriously flawed. 

Getting back to our ruling, DeParle criticized the health insurance industry report on the grounds that it was an incomplete analysis. She said it "ignores some of the key policies that are part of the Senate Finance Committee bill." The report itself admits as much. We rate her statement True.

Thus Regence Blue Cross of Oregon is supporting a last-ditch attempt to derail health insurance reform. Not by engaging in straightforward debate on the issues, but by cherry-picking a few elements of the Senate Finance committee bill and ignoring other cost-saving features.

AHIP should have stopped while it was ahead. Many progressives, including me, consider the Senate bill a giveaway to the health insurance industry. Regence and other insurers would have been wise to embrace it, rather than attempt to kill it.

Now, Congressional Democrats irritated at AHIP's heavy-handed and duplicitous lobbying efforts are threatening some blowback. Like, taking away the health insurance industry's cozy exemption from anti-trust laws.

Sounds good to me.

The Dems also need to make sure that a public option is in the final bill. I want to be able to vote with my health insurance premium and tell Regence Blue Cross of Oregon "goodbye" after it tried to scuttle much-needed reform.

More government, please -- give me a public option

I can't understand all the rabid anti-government sentiment from right-wingers in response to the notion of offering people a publicly-run health insurance option.

That's what Medicare is.

And Medicare recipients rate this government program much more highly than users of private insurance rate their plans. A survey found that 56% gave Medicare a 9 or 10 on a 1-10 scale, while only 40% of private insurance members gave their plans that high a rating.

Government programs work well, by and large. 

I went to two public colleges, San Jose State University and Portland State University. Got a good education. These institutions co-exist just fine with private universities. So if a public option works well in education, why not in health insurance?

Six days a week the United States Postal Service delivers mail to our door, almost always reliably. I can mail a letter all the way across the country for 44 cents, a good deal. When I go to The Mail Depot, a USPS contractor, I can choose between several private parcel delivery services and the postal service. Once again, a public option meshes nicely with private mailing options.

Our police and fire protection come from the government. I don't hear anyone clamoring for privatizing these public services. If somebody wants extra security, they can contract with a private company.

I don't lie awake at night worrying about being invaded by a foreign country. Our military forces are the best in the world. And who runs the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines? The government.

So what's the big freaking deal with offering a public health insurance option?

I'd love to have a choice between Regence Blue Cross and a program administered by the government.Hopefully the health insurance reform bill that's proceeding at a glacial pace through Congress will include a public option.

Here's some good news: the Dems are talking about allowing states to opt out of a public option, which would make it more palatable to government-phobic parts of the country that are eager to pay more for health insurance than necessary.

Nate Silver, who has one of the sharpest political minds around, thinks this is a good way to go.

Me too. Let's git r done!

Conservative talk-show blatherers like Beck lack influence

Excellent news. And not wholly unexpected.

I've always wondered if the right-wing crazies like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage have anywhere near the political influence that their over-heated egos claim.

New York Times columnist David Brooks says, "No, they don't" in The Wizard of Beck.

So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

Passing a public option is a no-brainer

Watching the debate in the Senate's Finance Committee (streaming online), it's clear that passing a public option as part of the health insurance reform bill is absolutely essential.

Sen. John Kerry just nailed it.

Private insurance plans spend 25-30% of premiums on administrative costs and making outrageous profits. So what's wrong with allowing citizens to choose a more efficient public plan that spends much more of our premiums on providing health care?

Two-thirds of Americans support a government-run health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurers. So vote for it, Finance Committee!

In constitution, community welfare trumps individual rights

Too many people these days falsely believe that the United States Constitution is all about individual rights, such as freedom of speech, the right to own a gun, and the right to have an abortion.

They forget about "promote the general welfare" in the preamble to the Constitution. 

Yesterday I read a great opinion piece by Paul VanDevelder in the Portland Oregonian: "Too many willing soldiers in the culture war." (In case that link stops working, I'll include the essay in an addendum to this post.)

My favorite part of the piece is a description of what happened when a couple of right-wingers, Kevin Mannix (an attorney) and Bill Sizemore (convicted racketeer) challenged the constitutionality of a proposed ballot initiative before the state Supreme Court.

We all rose as the seven judges filed into the courtroom and took their seats. Chief Justice Michael Gillette, a conservative Harvard-educated jurist with a deliberate manner and a short fuse, didn't dilly-dally. He gave a brief oral summary of the initiative in a stentorian voice, then asked Mannix to explain his protest.

Mannix, no stranger to the court, cut to the chase. He told the court that Section 8 of the initiative, which read, "In an equal contest between the rights of an individual and the welfare of the community, the welfare of the community is usually superior," was simply un-American. By subordinating the liberties of individuals to the well-being of the community, this concept, charged Mannix, violated every principle of freedom our nation stands for, and voters needed to understand what was at stake.

Mannix thrust his chin into the air. After an interval of electric silence, the chief justice rocked forward on his elbows and bellowed, "That principle, Mr. Mannix, lies at the heart of American foundational law! When was the last time you read the U.S. Constitution? Exactly what is your problem with our Constitution, Mr. Mannix?"

In one brief statement, Justice Gillette had measured the ground we have lost since James Madison and Alexander Hamilton set out to illuminate and safeguard the precarious balance that exists in a representative democracy between the rights of the individual and the welfare of the community.

I thought of these sentiments when I came across a story about how lawmakers in some states are trying to amend their constitutions to outlaw a requirement that everyone have health insurance.

(I assume next they will try to outlaw mandatory auto insurance for drivers.)

This requirement likely will be part of whatever national health insurance reform bill is passed by Congress. It's necessary to make our mediocre health care system better than Costa Rica's.

One reason, among several, is that if some people are able to opt out of health insurance, the rest of us are going to end up paying their bills when they end up in the emergency room after they get sick and need subsidized charity care.

But the individual right'ists don't care about the general welfare of this country. They're selfishly focused on me, me, me -- allowing a few people to gain benefits at the expense of the many.

VanDevelder goes to say that the Oregon Supreme Court voted 7-0 against the notion that individuals rights and freedoms should be allowed to triumph over the larger common good.

Hopefully Kevin Mannix used this as a teachable moment to learn about the United States Constitution (which you'd think he'd have been exposed to in law school; maybe he slept through those classes).

Here's the essay.

"We're Number 37" song shows mediocrity of U.S. health care

Why are so many people in the United States so eager to keep this country mired in mediocrity -- #37 in the world -- when it comes to our underperforming, yet wildly costly, health care non-system?

Beats me.

I just wish each and every one of those opposed to health care reform would take three minutes away from watching Fox News and expose themselves to some truth for a change.

In the form of a You Tube music video by Paul Hipp.

I loved it! And, yes, it's truly true. OK, "mostly true" according to the well-respected PolitiFact web site.

But that's a heck of a lot truer than the lies being spread around by the We're #37 and let's keep it that way! folks.

Problem is, the health insurance industry can generate a heck of a lot of untruthiness for $700,000 a day in lobbying cash. 

I was watching CNBC last week and heard one of their financial genius anchors utter an amazing bit of absurdity.

He opined that health care is a growth industry and the United States should want much more, not less, money spent on it. Currently we spend about 16% of our GNP on health care. This guy thought that a third wouldn't be too much.

Crazy.

If all that money really bought a commensurate amount of health and happiness for Americans, his stance would be more defensible.

But when we already spend a whole lot more per capita than any other industrialized country, and that's gotten us a world health care ranking just below Costa Rica, more of the same sure isn't the solution.

Unless our goal is to be able to sing, "We're Number 137."

Republican "Liar!" guy lies. What a non-surprise.

Finally...Obama got his mojo back last night.

Like so many others, I was energized by his health care speech. I even sent $50 off to the Organizing for America folks whose email pitches I've been ignoring, because I've been irritated about how Obama was letting Republicans get away with so many lies.

But in his speech before the joint session of Congress he called them out on the ridiculous Palin'esque "death panel" claim. It's a lie, plain and simple, he said -- absolutely correctly.

It was amazing, but not particularly surprising, to hear a Republican congressman yell out "You lie!" when Obama said that health reform wouldn't insure illegal immigrants.

It takes one to know one, as the saying goes.

The Republican party is notorious for harboring gay-bashers who turn out to be homosexuals themselves, moralistic fundamentalists who turn out to be having affairs, and liars who are fond of accusing other people of lying.

It's a fact: Rep. Joe Wilson said that Obama lied, but this itself was a lie.

Along with most of the other crap that opponents of health reform have been throwing around, hoping some would stick to the inside of the brains of gullible Americans.

PolitiFact does say there is some truth to the claim that the reform bills currently don't have a 100% sure-fire mechanism to make sure that verification of citizenship would be required before someone could apply for benefits.

But this is a long ways from Wilson's "you lie!"

Obama's health reform plans make so much sense, the Republicans have to resort to lies and half truths in order to get any traction at all in their efforts to defeat the legislation.

It was interesting that the Republican side of Congress stood and applauded mentions of key reform goals: doing away from pre-existing condition exclusions, stopping insurance companies from denying coverage after someone becomes seriously ill, and so on.

And how can anyone be against helping low- and middle-income people obtain affordable health insurance coverage?

Two-thirds of those who watched Obama's speech favor his reform plans. Last night wasn't a game-changer, but Obama's impressive clear-headed performance went a long way toward shoving the right-wing lying machine out of the public spotlight.

Now, it's time for Congress to get going and pass a reform bill. Do your part. It just takes a minute or two.

Doonesbury cartoon champions "Reasonists"

Perusing the Sunday comics this morning, my wife called out to me. "You're going to like Doonesbury today."

Oh, yes, she was so right. I've copied in the strip below.

As he so often does, Garry Trudeau encapsulated the United States' biggest political and cultural problem in just a few cartoon frames:

Gullibility

Too many people will believe anything, if they want to believe it. Reality? Truth? Evidence? Irrelevant.

At the moment it's the Republicans and right-wingers who are playing the most games with American gullibility.

In PolitiFact's "Pants on Fire" section, where the most egregious lies are documented, nineteen out of twenty of the most recent vintage are from conservative Obama haters.

One is from Obama himself -- his claim that the number of Muslims in the United States makes it one of the largest Islamic countries in the world. Not true. But also not a big deal.

On "Meet the Press" today, I heard David Axelrod (an Obama advisor) asked how the administration lost control of the news about his speech to America's school children on Tuesday, which has been widely branded as an attempt to indoctrinate kids into socialism.

This, of course, is one of those Pants on Fire lies. How can you control idiocy like that?

Just one way, as the Doonesbury strip says: the Reasonists who believe in an evidence-based world have to assert themselves and become more numerous.

Reality, after all, is a terrible thing to waste.

Republican health care craziness has to stop

I don't think all Republicans are crazy. But most leaders in the Republican party are, when it comes to fixing this country's health care problems.

The insanity has got to stop. For a while it was sort of amusing to see how bizarre the lies could get.

Death panels! Socialized medicine! Veterans being encouraged to commit suicide!

Now, though, summer is almost over. It's time to get serious. No more funny stories.

Which, of course, aren't so funny if you can't afford health care, are getting screwed over by a health insurance company, or are a small business faced with another round of double digit premium increases for your employees that are making your bottom line sink like a stone.

The lies above are debunked by PolitiFact, a web site that does a great job of separating fact from fiction in political debates.

They catch both Democrats and Republicans in truth-shredding. But the truly stupendous "pants on fire" lies are almost always the work of the not-so-Grand Old Party.

I don't see how any reasonable person could be proud of being a Republican these days. The Democratic Party has its freakish fringe, but in the Republican Party craziness is mainstream.

Illegal aliens getting free health care if a reform bill passes? Utterly untrue, says PolitiFact.

But I hear this claim being made all the time on right-wing talk radio and cable news. Where's the shame in telling a blatant lie? How Republicans can call themselves "values voters" is beyond me, unless lying has become the Eleventh Commandment.

Fortunately, there are some truth-tellers in the media. I hugely enjoyed the Washington Post's "Five Myths About Health Care Around the World." 

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

And Newsweek recently exposed "The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate."

1. You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.
2. No chemo for older Medicare patients.
3. Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
4. Death panels will decide who lives.
5. The government will set doctors' wages.

Interesting. Each of these myths and lies is being spread by opponents of health care reform, not by the proponents.

Like I said, there is some shading of the truth by Democrats and progressives. But the real down and dirty lying is all Republican and right-wing.

Oregonian front page ad is disgusting!

There are plenty of outrages in the world for me to be incensed about.

But today I choose to focus my disgust on Oregon's largest newspaper, the Portland Oregonian -- to which we subscribe, though we live in the wilds of rural south Salem.

The past two days I've walked up our driveway to get the paper and have been met with an infuriating sight when I take a look at the front page.

What doesn't boil over? I want to know! Now!

I'm holding two newspapers in my hands, the Oregonian and the Salem Statesman Journal. I haven't had a cup of coffee yet, because it's brewing while I get the papers. I don't need to start my day with this goddamn freaking advertising insert covering up half of the front page!

Yes, it's clever how neatly the top part of the insert blends with the real front page. But Safeway (and before you, Fred Meyer), here's what you should know before you spend more big bucks on this affront to journalistic decency.

I hate the insert. I detest it. I have to expend valuable pre-caffeine caloric energy to remove the insert and reveal the front page that I've been accustomed to reading ad-less.

And my irritation transfers over to the source of the insert.

That's you, Safeway and Fred Meyer. I have less than zero interest in what your ad says, because my anger at the medium blots out your message.

In the good old days of journalism, front page advertising was a big no-no. Now it isn't, as the American Journalism Review's "A Fading Taboo" discusses.

Given the tone of this blog post, naturally I heartily agree with this excerpt from the article:

Page-one placement can spark visceral reactions not only from journalists but also from readers. Take the case in March of the fluorescent advertising stickers (for a motor oil company and a carpet-and-flooring company) pasted atop the front page of the Hartford Courant.

Reader Representative Karen Hunter received several indignant comments on her blog. "That is disgusting to have advertising on the front page of my newspaper," wrote one woman. Said another: "This has got to stop." One reader took it further, accusing the Tribune Co., the Courant's parent, of "absolutely whoring for advertising... It screams, 'We're desperate!' It screams, 'Ethics be damned!'"

Oregonian, please can the inserts. Pretty please. Raise subscription rates a bit. Switch to cheaper coffee in the newsroom. Whatever. Just give me back an unobstructed front page.

Obama brings sanity to health care craziness

I'm not a believer, but I still thought "thank God we have a president who's so sane and intelligent" after watching Obama's town hall meeting on health care today.

My laptop brought me every live moment.

Like a LA Times blogger, I was disappointed that some right-wing wacko didn't ask one of the WTF questions based on an insane belief that have been so common at other town hall meetings.

And in Sarah Palin's highly deluded mind.

She claims that "Obama wants to kill my baby through his death panels," which is bat-shit crazy. How anyone thinks Palin is qualified to occupy any elected office is beyond me.

Unelected also. Though she wouldn't be bad doing volunteer work as a stand-up comedian in a mental institution (only problem: the patients probably would think she was making sense and take her seriously).

I worked in health planning and health policy analysis for about fifteen years. So I'm more than qualified to assess Obama's grasp of health care issues. My grade: A. Maybe even A+.

Watching him, I kept wondering how thank-god-he's-ex-president Bush would have handled the questions thrown at Obama. It would have been painful for reality admirers to watch.

That's really what going on here: another classic battle between Defenders of Reality and truth-haters whose motto is, "I can make up whatever crap I want." Today Obama provided the country with a much-needed reality check.

Let's face it. Many Americans are clueless about how our health care system works, and how other countries manage to get a lot more health for a lot less money

For example, all of the senior citizens who scream, "The government better keep it's hands off of my Medicare!" Um, somebody needs to tell these people that Medicare is a government health care program. 

Socialized medicine! also is a favorite buzz word of the uninformed.Today Nate Silver put up a clever post showing the obvious differences between the Canadian and British health systems.

Canada provides care through private doctors and hospitals, with payment made through the government (just like Medicare). Great Britain does it differently, through government-paid providers.

Today Obama said that he isn't in favor of a single payer plan like Canada has. So when our health care reform bill passes, and I'm confident it will, the United States won't be anywhere near as socialized medicine'y as Canada, and Canada doesn't have anything like real socialized medicine.

I wish every crazy who has been screaming insanities at town hall meetings would take the time to read the transcript of what Obama said today. 

You'd think they'd be willing to, since they keep asking congresspeople if they've read one of the 1000 page health insurance reform bill drafts. However, truth is a scary thing when you've got your mind made up to embrace falsities.

Here's 10 Health Care Reform Myths, according to CBS News. Almost all of them clearly show that Obama is right and the rabid reform opponents are wrong.

And here's Keith Olbermann demolishing the "death panel" sort of craziness of Sarah Palin and her ilk. I like how he says that this latest bit of Palin'ish nonsense should disqualify her from occupying any position of responsibility, ideally for eternity.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Facts about health care reform

Ooh, that's a scary word for lots of people nowadays: facts. They prefer the truthiness of Stephen Colbert:

Truthiness is what you want the facts to be, as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.

Like most progressives, I like policy-making to be based on reality that is as real as possible. Things just go better when they're founded on facts rather than falsehoods.

Sure, you're free to drive a car assuming that a red light means "go," and a green light means "stop" -- what right does society have to tell you what your truth is? -- but you'd better have good auto insurance with a low collision deductible and a non-cancellation clause.

A New York Times editorial (five more scary words for truthiness devotees) on "Health Care Reform and You" is the best summary I've read of what proposed legislation would mean for Americans.

Bottom line: almost everybody would benefit.

And I'm tempted to leave out "almost," but don't want to appear utopian. We're not talking socialized medicine, or government takeover, or rationing.

The editorial concludes with:

All of this suggests to us that the great majority of Americans — those with insurance and those without — would benefit from health care reform.

Facts please. Here's an excerpt from the editorial that had me thinking, "let's pass this legislation pronto!"

As part of health reform, all insurance companies would be more tightly regulated. For Americans who are never quite certain that their policies will come through for them when needed, that is very good news.

The House bill, for example, would require that all new policies sold on or off the exchanges must offer yet-to-be-determined “essential benefits.” It would prohibit those policies from excluding or charging higher rates to people with pre-existing conditions and would bar the companies from rescinding policies after people come down with a serious illness. It would also prohibit insurers from setting annual or lifetime limits on what a policy would pay. All this would kick in immediately for all new policies.

I've written several posts about how Regence BlueCross of Oregon recently denied my request to shift to a different plan because I had two minor health problems, a.k.a. preexisting conditions.

You see, health insurance companies don't like it when policy-holders need health care. This reduces their profit margin. What is "health care" to  you and me is "expense" to the Regence accounting department.

This is why Regence has a two million dollar cap on lifetime benefits per individual member. Sure, that's a lot of money. But it isn't unheard of to run up medical bills that large if you have serious health problems.

When you get to $2,000,000 in health care costs, Regence says "goodbye and good luck." Yet Republicans are almost universally united in opposing any changes to our health insurance system, with many wanting this to be Obama's Waterloo.

How's that for compassionate conservatism? Let Americans die and go broke in order to make a political point.

It's summertime. I'm trying to chill out during a wonderfully warm Oregon summer. But I just decided to get off my complacent butt and donate some money to help the health care reform effort.

Check out what you can do, much of which doesn't cost anything. It's easy to submit an online form that says you support Obama's reform efforts.

What reasonable person could disagree with what he's trying to achieve?

Reduce costs — Rising health care costs are crushing the budgets of governments, businesses, individuals, and families, and they must be brought under control

Guarantee choice — Every American must have the freedom to choose their plan and doctor – including the choice of a public insurance option

Ensure quality care for all — All Americans must have quality and affordable health care

Letting children die isn't a valid religious belief

It's a warm Oregon day, but I'm still frosted over a jury deciding that child sacrifice in the name of Jesus deserves no more than a legal slap on the hand: the father was found guilty of criminal mistreatment, a misdemeanor; the mother got off entirely.

Over on my Church of the Churchless blog, I said "Child sacrifice gets a yellow light in Oregon." That post has generated a lot of comments, many of which mystify me.

Disturbingly, they seem to reflect the misguided sentiments of the jurors who voted to absolve Carl and Raylene Worthington of the most serious charges. Believing that hurting someone is right doesn't make it so, not under our laws.

Today I responded to a commenter who, like the jury, argued that people should be free to believe whatever they want.

Phil, interesting legal theory you set forth -- which, thankfully, isn't accepted in cases of child abuse, spouse abuse, and such.My wife was a psychotherapist in private practice for many years.

She encountered quite a few men, usually Christian, who believed that it was fine to beat their wife or children because, gosh, God has decreed that the man is the head of the family, and whatever he feels Jesus/God wants him to do, that's the best for everyone.

So I assume that if someone is a meth addict, and believes it is OK to not take their child to the doctor when seriously ill, because there's just no point and doctors don't know shit anyway, you feel this is a reason to absolve them of legal guilt?

What's the difference, as an Oregonian columnist pointed out, between someone high on deluded religious beliefs and someone high on a pharmaceutical?

If I'm ever stopped for speeding, I'll try telling the policeman, "I'm innocent because I didn't believe I was going that fast," or "I believed it was fine to go 90 on this stretch of road."

I'm up with the sort of moral relativism you espouse when breaking laws doesn't hurt other people. But when it puts innocents in danger, as in this case, they have to be protected from an attitude of "Hey, everyone is entitled to believe what they want to."

The jury members had a tough job. However, they should have stuck with the law, rather than their emotions.

The Oregonian newspaper reported that the jurors' empathy led them to a "epiphany": the Worthington's didn't take Ava, their 15 month-old daughter, to the hospital because they thought she was getting better.

There's two problems with this: (1) Oregon law doesn't require intent to be a factor in determining whether someone is guilty of manslaughter, a fact the jurors ignored. (2) Ava's grandfather testified that under no circumstances would the family seek medical care, because their bizarre religious belief is that Jesus heals, not doctors.

I'm pleased to see that one juror now is saying he wishes he could change his vote, since he didn't know about the other deaths of children in the faith-healing church. Unfortunately, it's too late. But not too late to save the lives of other children.

Oregon needs to toughen its laws in this area. And religious fundamentalists need to learn that their right to believe as they wish ends when acting on a belief harms someone else. 

Obama, take my health insurance company -- please

Yeah, this blog post title is based on an old joke.

But the fact that I remember it, because I'm old, is related to my increasing anxiety over whether President Obama is going to pull off the health care reform that this country in general -- plus my 60'ish wife and I in particular -- sorely need.

I want Obama to save us from the clutches of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon. Recently a Twitter Tweet popped into my head:

I'd love to have government come between me and my health insurance company, just as I want a policeman to come between me and a robber.

Which is what insurance companies are, based on the double-digit annual premium increases Regence has been inflicting on us for quite a few years.

I have zero warm feelings toward Regence.

That's unusual, because every other company we have an ongoing relationship with is at least passingly pleasing to me. Regence BlueCross BlueShield, not at all.

It could disappear tomorrow and we wouldn't miss it a bit. All they do for us is pay medical bills, reluctantly, and tell us what sorts of medical treatments they'll cover, unpersuasively.

My latest gripe with Regence, described here, started with us applying to switch to a different insurance plan. I thought that would be simple, since we've been enrolled with Regence for so long and are pretty healthy.

Nope.

I was denied the switch because I'm taking two medications for an enlarged prostate, Avodart and Flomax. A Regence underwriter said this meant I was at a higher risk for needing surgery eventually.

Wrong. A few minutes of Google research turned up this bit of information:

GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved AVODART (dutasteride) in combination with tamsulosin [Flomax] for the treatment of symptomatic enlarged prostate, a disease that affects half of all men over 50 years old. The new indication reflects emerging research showing the combination of the two medicines treats the symptoms of enlarged prostate more effectively than either medicine alone.

So either medicine reduces the probablility of needing prostate surgery, and taking both together reduces the risk even more. Yet the Regence underwriting department had it backward, as I'll be telling them soon in a letter.

The plain truth is that health insurance companies don't want people to get health care.

They do their best to deny claims if you're insured, and to keep you from getting an individual policy if you have any preexisting conditions if you aren't yet insured.

By contrast, I've never felt that Apple or AT&T don't want me to use my iPhone. However, I have an absurdly large number of phone call minutes that I fail to use each month. That's fine with me.

I pay a monthly bill to AT&T for iPhone service. Then I use my iPhone however I want to. It's a lot like a single payer national health plan, except I'm not a nation, and the service I'm getting isn't health care.

Nonetheless, I want a health plan that is a lot more like my iPhone contract than our Regence BlueCross policy.

Simple. Straightforward. Easy to understand. Non-bureaucratic. Our current private health insurance setup is none of these.

I haven't watched Obama's prime time press conference yet. I'm hoping that he comes out swinging passionately and articulately for health care reform, and can cogently explain what sorts of changes he expects in a bill.

I agree with a New York Times analysis:

The immediate task facing Mr. Obama — in his news conference on Wednesday night and beyond — is to explain that the health care system doesn’t really work the way it seems to. He won’t be able to put it in such blunt terms. But he will need to explain how a typical household, one that has insurance and thinks it always will, is being harmed.

The bailouts were fairly easy to encapsulate: government investing in private businesses to save their asses.

So is the cap and trade climate change legislation: keep the planet green and clean to avoid some really mean consequences.

But so far I haven't grasped what Obama's health care reform is all about. Neither has the American public, which is why the right-wing ideologues have been able to spread their lies about socialized medicine and such.

Hopefully tonight Obama will lead the country in a fresh health care direction. I'm ready to follow. 

Marijuana is getting high attention -- legalization near?

No, it isn't a flashback from my '60 days. I've carefully perused the dates on a bunch of marijuana-related stories, and they're all recent.

Something is happening here, particularly in the western reaches of the United States, and I don't know what it is. (To paraphrase an old friend.) But it sure seems like the times they are a-changin'.

Evidence...

Oregon's Governor is about to sign a bill that will legalize the industrial production of hemp.

Oregon is on the verge of becoming the first Western state to allow farmers to grow industrial hemp... Oregon will then become the seventh state to allow farmers to grow hemp, even though the federal government says it's still an illegal crop.

Plans are being laid to place a citizen initiative legalizing marijuana on Oregon's 2010 ballot.

If they can gather 87,000 signatures to put it on the ballot, and voters then approved the initiative, the act would set up the Oregon Cannabis Control Commission. The new agency would sell pot to buyers 21 and over, with 90 percent of the profit going to the state’s general fund and 10 percent for drug treatment.

Yesterday the Associated Press ran a lengthy story about California's marijuana "green rush."

Marijuana has transformed California. Since the state became the first to legalize the drug for medicinal use, the weed the federal government puts in the same category as heroin and cocaine has become a major economic force.

No longer relegated to the underground, pot in California these days props up local economies, mints millionaires and feeds a thriving industry of startups designed to grow, market and distribute the drug.

A few days ago a New York Times article, "Marijuana is Gateway Drug for Two Debates," spoke of the push for legalization and the concern about negative effects of today's more powerful pot.

The drug cannot lead to fatal overdose and its hazards pale in comparison with those of alcohol. But at the same time, marijuana can be up to five times more potent than the cannabis of the 1970s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Thanks to Jack Bog's blog, I learned that there's an iPhone app for finding marijuana.

The purpose of the app is to help locate legal medical marijuana in states and locations where it can be found. Will this app lead thousands of iPhone users to cannabis, or is it a tool of a movement in favor of marijuana legalization? The answer, surprisingly, is both.

This month Portland's Willamette Week had a cover page story, "Just Say Now," about the fight to legalize marijuana.

Nearly every day offers another object lesson in the merits of marijuana reform. And the American people seem to be noticing. At least four polls in the past three months have shown a greater uptick in the public’s receptiveness to legalization than ever before.

Going back in time to a year ago, a fascinating article in The New Yorker described how medical marijuana is transforming the California pot industry.

Only a small percentage of consumer marijuana sales in California occur within the medical-marijuana market. Even so, the dispensaries, by serving as a gold standard for producers and consumers, have fuelled the popularity of high-end strains in much the same way that the popularity of the Whole Foods grocery chain has brought heirloom lettuce to ordinary supermarkets.

And -- no big surprise -- there's a web site, WeBeHigh, that bills itself as: Worldwide Marijuana Travel Guide, Marijuana Prices, Spots & Legalization Status

I checked out Portland, Oregon. The "smoking tolerance level" approaches Virtually Legal status.

Portland police are very forgiving toward marijuana smokers, and do not look for them. In fact, there are some areas in Portland (see “spots”) where it is very common to smoke pot in public.

The truth about Obama's butt ogling

I never really believed that President Obama would ogle a teenager's butt (though it was undeniably attractive) at a public function.

Now the truth comes out, thanks to a Daily Kos video. No surprise: once again, Fox News purposely spread a falsehood. See for yourself:

Obama, save us from BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon

The debate over how to fix our country's broken health care system can get pretty darn abstract and complex. But last night my wife and I had a hands-on experience of what's wrong with private medical insurance.

And it made us ever so eager to escape from the clutches of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, which is our increasingly costly insurance provider.

After Regence's 40% premium increase on our individual plan over the past two years, we decided to look for a way to get more health care bang for our bucks.

Laurel has a friend, Christy, who is an insurance agent. She said we should look into changing from Blue Selections Plus to Blue Selections Premier, and consider altering our deductible.

First, though, it was necessary to make a big pot of coffee, pray to the health insurance gods, and hope that a mixture of caffeine and supernatural guidance would enable us to decipher the differences between Plus and Premier.

Remember: we were exploring private sector options, not the Obama "socialized medicine" that right-wingers are claiming will ruin the world's best health care system.

Well, after a few hours of trying to navigate Regence's private sector maze, we were damn ready to embrace anything other than the insurance we have now -- if that turns out to be a public plan such as the one members of Congress have, great.

If someone wants to call it socialized medicine, go right ahead. It can't be worse than the horribly confusing and unfair health insurance system we have now.

I worked for ten years in health services research and planning. Laurel was a psychotherapist in private practice for about the same length of time. We know a lot about health insurance.

And we both were scratching our heads last night, trying to weigh the pros and cons of deductibles, copays, annual limits on coverage for certain services, annual coinsurance maximums, plus other arcane (yet important) factors that must confuse most other people even more than they did us.

I kept thinking...

"Come on! Why can't this country simply have an insurance plan that meets the needs of almost everybody? Like how the postal service operates. It does a fine job delivering our mail. And it's a government program. If I want extra service, I can head to Federal Express. But by and large the USPS provides a great product -- for everybody."

After phoning Christy and getting some advice on the best deductible for us, we decided that it made sense to switch to the Premier $2,500 deductible plan, from our current Plus $1,000 deductible.

OK. Optimistic me actually thought that maybe I could just call Regence, talk to someone, and have our contract easily changed from Plus to Premier.

Yeah, right.

As if anything is easy with health insurance these days. Which reminds me: the Regence web site, for some utterly understandable reason, doesn't include "plethora of inefficient private plans" among its reasons for rising health care costs.

A 2005 Science Daily story says:

Billing and insurance paperwork consume at least one out of every five dollars of private insurance health spending in California, according to a new study by health policy researchers.

I can believe it, given how much time we spent last night filling out an application for a Premier contract. Because even though we've been Regence customers for many years, I was told that switching to a different plan entailed applying for coverage just as someone new would have to.

I didn't think the online form would be fun to complete. However, I had no idea that it would be as time-consuming and frustrating as it was.

Whoever designed this monstrosity of a questionnaire probably never filled it out himself or herself. If he or she had, the ridiculousness of asking the same question over and over in different ways would have been obvious.

Yes, one of us had moderately high cholesterol at one point (me). I dutifully check that health problem as I move down a lengthy list of diagnoses, symptoms, and such we've experienced the past five years that Regence wants to know about.

Then the form demands more details. I explain that I was prescribed a low dose statin and my cholesterol is much lower now. Regence wants to know the name, address, and phone number of the doctor who wrote the prescription. I provide it.

Later, after Laurel and I have been working on completing the application for 90 minutes or so, page 967 (roughly speaking) of the form asks for a list of prescription drugs we're currently taking.

"We already told about those in the problem areas," Laurel said. No matter. The online application must be obeyed. We spend more time re-typing in the same info we'd already provided. Now I understand how staff in doctor's offices and hospital billing must feel:

Wanting to strangle the private health insurance bureaucrats who come between patients and their health care providers.

I can't understand how the conservative blowhards I hear on talk radio/TV manage to say, "Americans don't want the government interfering with their current health insurance coverage."

Yes we do!  Please, please, government! Step in and interfere! 

Just save me from ever having to fill out another private health insurance contract application like the one we worked on last night. It was insane, because the clear purpose behind most of the questions was to learn whether we -- gasp! -- might have some health problems.

Gosh, Regence, you got us.

You're right. Laurel and I want health insurance because we're not always healthy. I know that you and other health insurance providers would prefer that your customers never got any medical care, because then you'd make more money.

And there are plenty of horror stories about people being denied coverage by private insurers because they failed to dot some "i" or cross some "t" on a form. So we did our best to be as complete and accurate as possible in filling out the damnably long and complex Premier contract application.

Throughout the process, though, I was struck by how absurd the whole notion was of grilling us about the health problems we have so some Regence employee can decide whether we have too great a need for health insurance.

Then Regence could deny an application for health insurance, because the applicants need health care. Um, don't people need a way of paying for health care because they have health problems?

There's something desperately screwed-up with American medical care. That came home to us last night, even though we already knew it.

Expecting private health insurance plans to be the centerpiece of reforms, given that they are a huge part of the problem, isn't reasonable. This country needs a public option. Bad!

For all their paeans to the power of private enterprise, we know that private insurers simply can't compete with the government, because they offer an inferior service at higher prices. We know this because of the example of Medicare, which operates more efficiently than private insurance (Medicare spends only around 2 percent of its costs on overhead, a fraction of what private plans do) and gets higher satisfaction ratings.

Oh, I can believe it. After suffering through the Regence Premier application form last night, I can sure believe it.

Rising health insurance premiums are a "tax boost" also

Go figure -- not that this is easy to do when what I'm trying to figure out is right-wing platitudes.

Like, tax increases always are bad.

Which makes sense. Except when it doesn't. Like when a tax increase is needed to provide essential services for the least fortunate and most vulnerable in Oregon -- the elderly, sick, poor, unemployed, children.

Yet reflexive anti-tax types like Russ Walker already are threatening to put a couple of tax increases on the ballot, if, as expected, they get through both houses of the state legislature.
Download Oregon tax boost

What ever happened to compassionate conservatism?

Republicans talk a good game about valuing charity and respecting life, but when it comes time to make a charitable contribution via taxes that will help deserving people live a lot better, all we hear is no, no, no!

Here's another bit of right-wing illogic: We just got a letter from Blue Cross of Oregon informing us that our health insurance premium would go up about 30% on July 1.

Thirty freaking percent! In one year!

Half of that, best I can figure, is due to me being sixty years old for the first time in a policy period. Of course, my health status is just the same and I'm taking care of myself just as marvelously as ever.

But the Blue Cross actuaries assume that once I crossed the 60 line, my wife and I should pay about 15% more for our health insurance. The other 15% is a regular annual premium increase for Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield.

To be distinguished from the regular annual 26% rate increase Blue Cross got last year. That's over 40% in two years, nasty.

So here's a question for Russ Walker and the rest of the anti-tax crowd: where's your outrage about the health insurance premium increases? We really don't have a choice about changing insurance companies, given the pre-existing condition clause that screws you over if you have a health problem that you need insurance for and want to sign up for a different policy.

Thus Blue Cross has taken a whole lot of money from us with its rate increases. And we can't do anything about it.

How is this different from a tax increase? Aren't Republicans in favor of letting people keep their own money, rather than shipping it off to faceless bureaucrats -- which perfectly describes large health insurance companies like Blue Cross.

It frosts me that so much Republican resistance is being expressed to a public option in Obama's health care reform proposal. Let's have some competition. Maybe that would make private health insurers more efficient and responsive to their customers.

The post office, a government operation basically, delivers our mail just fine. Ditto on the "just fine" with government firefighters. And government police. Not to mention the government's armed forces.

I don't understand the objection to having government operate a health insurance plan. Just as the postal service is in competition with UPS and Federal Express, so can a public health care option compete with private insurers.

I'm tired of having our premium go up double digits every year, when inflation is so low. To me, that's a tax increase. I can't wait for Congress to do something about it.

Don't mess with Oregon's strip clubs

They're going to have to pry nude dancers out of Oregonians' sweaty, dollar bill-clenching (or is it a five spot these days?) hands.

At least, I hope so.

I haven't been in a strip club for a long time. But it bothers me when prudes in Tualatin want to amend the Oregon constitution so local governments could regulate where the clubs are located.

We're #1 in free speech. And strip clubs. Why surrender our top positions?

Oregon's constitution and rulings by the Oregon Supreme Court have protected nude dancing, adult bookstores -- even live sex shows -- through the free-speech clause. Those protections have helped dub Portland the country's per-capita strip-club capital.

Rick Attig of the Oregonian, Portland's largest newspaper, makes some great points.

But since 1994, Oregon voters have been asked three times whether they wanted to limit free-speech protections for the sex industry, and three times they clearly have answered no.

Tualatin is now seeking a fourth statewide vote on the issue. Again, if nude dancing was anywhere near the top of the list of Oregon's problems, maybe we could see starting yet another statewide argument on the issue. But when legislators are just trying to keep schools and universities open and provide jobless benefits and basic shelter, food and health care, Oregon doesn't have the luxury to obsess over women dancing naked on a Tualatin stage.

Conservatives freak out when the "will of the people" supposedly is challenged by liberal legislators, judges, or special interest groups. Yet here they are, wanting to revisit a free speech issue that Oregonians have decided three times already.

There's a big right-wing uproar over any proposal to "chip away" at the second amendment by banning automatic assault weapons or regulating sales at gun shows.

But when it's the free speech provision of Oregon's constitution that's being watered down, no problem.

Let's keep Oregon pleasantly godforsaken. Strip clubs, yes. Moralistic judgmentalism, no.

Outrageous bonuses go to PGE and AIG executives

We here in Oregon are getting a double dose of undeserved bonus outrage. Most attention is being given to $165 million in payments to AIG employees who oversaw the crazy financial dealings that led to the company's near collapse.

But let's not lose sight of our own local corporate outrageousness: Portland General Electric's CEO, Peggy Fowler, is retiring after being given a final pay package of $4.5 million and a retirement plan of $790,000 a year.

Our electricity comes to us via the excessively expensive graces of PGE. We've been trying to save energy by using compact fluorescent bulbs, wrapping duct pipes, replacing old windows, and adding more insulation.

But our monthly electricity bill keeps going up regardless, because PGE raises rates faster than we're able to cut down on our usage. Which makes Fowler's golden parachute deeply irritating, since we and other PGE customers are paying for it.

As the Oregonian article says:

Ratepayer advocates described the pay package as one more sign of a bloated cost structure at PGE, and said it betrayed a lack of accountability at a time when the utility is raising rates and thousands of customers are losing their jobs.

"What this shows is that there's no such thing as an economic downturn for the management of a monopoly utility," said Bob Jenks, executive director of the Citizen's Utility Board. "This is the highest cost utility in the region. They raised rates last year. At a time when the economy is suffering, where's the impact on the utility?"

The parallels between AIG and PGE are interesting -- beyond the fact that both companies have a three letter abbreviated name.

Back in 2003, in "The Public Fleecing by PGE," the Oregon Public Power Coalition said:

In 2002, PGE/Enron paid almost $1 million in retention bonuses to the company’s top five executives. PGE's CEO Peggy Fowler was paid a salary of $346,000, a performance-based bonus of $200,000 and a retention bonus of $400,000, for a total of $946,000 for 2002. In comparison, the head of the Los Angeles PUD makes $200,000 annually. The Oregonian wrote in a May 1, 2003 editorial (Adding insult to injury at PGE) criticizing PGE executive bonuses, "But it's the wrong tactic for a company whose workers lost their 401(k) savings in worthless Enron stock. And it's an insult to customers hit with 30 percent and 50 percent power rate increases."

Sound familiar?

Fowler and PGE have been blazing the outrageous bonus trail for AIG -- which also is out to reward its employees for costing the public huge amounts of money via incompetent managerial decisions.

Today we learned that much of AIG's taxpayer-supplied $170 billion went to pay overseas firms that had insured their mortgage-backed investments with AIG. When the securities went bad, they wanted their money.

Only problem was, AIG had neglected to put aside funds to back the insurance that had been issued. Seems like someone at the country's largest insurance company would have thought of this.

But hey, no problem! AIG just ponied up to the public trough and asked the federal government for a bailout. To prevent a world financial meltdown, the feds had to fork over the money.

And now the shameless incompetents at AIG want to reward the people who engineered this disaster with $165 million in bonus and retention payments. Shades of PGE.

AIG is claiming that the bonuses are needed to retain key employees in the company's financial products unit. As the New York Times says:

That unit was the source of the financial derivatives blamed for the near-collapse at the heart of the economy’s downturn.

On the radio today I heard someone say, "If these are the best and the brightest, then what AIG needs are the worst and dumbest."

Right on. Why the heck should the taxpayers, who own 80% of AIG after all of the government bailouts, fork out more money to keep people who should be fired?

And why should PGE customers, like my wife and me, pay Peggy Fowler many millions of dollars for raising our electricity rates considerably above those of other utilities in the Northwest?

[Update: Here's a clever idea from a congressman -- add a surtax that would only apply to the AIG bonuses, thereby effectively taxing them out of existence and returning the money to government. Excellent.]

Index investing rocks and Jim Cramer sucks

I've hugely enjoyed watching Jon Stewart roast CNBC in general, and Jim Cramer in particular, over the Comedy Central humor fire.

If you missed Stewart's spot-on demolishing of CNBC's and Cramer's supposed financial acumen, you can catch up here and here.

Cramer is entertaining on his frenetic "Mad Money" show. But his investing philosophy -- individual stock-picking and market timing -- is a proven loser. Why anyone follows his bad advice is a mystery to me.

Hopefully The Daily Show's expose of Cramer's cluelessness will lead fans of Mad Money to look elsewhere for sound investment advice.

On the first of Jon Stewart's rants he shows Cramer saying in 2007 that Bank of America "was going to 60 in a heartbeat." Today it's around 5, yet guess what? Cramer is still saying Buy! to B of A (sure sounds like it...watch very end of video on that link).

Here's one of Stewart's better lines.

Maybe the most shocking Jim Cramer gem is when he is advising that his audience buy stocks: "You should be buying these, and accept that they are overvalued, but accept that they are going to keep going higher. I know that sounds irresponsible but that's how you make the money." On that day in 2007, the Dow was at 13,930. It is now below 7,000.

"If I had only followed CNBC's advice," Stewart says at one point, "I'd have a million dollars today. Provided I started with a 100 million dollars."

Smart investors realize that what Cramer and CNBC are peddling is pure bullshit. Plenty of sound research has proven that index (or passive) investing leads to superior returns.

Sure, a few people manage to beat the market. And a few people also win big bucks in lotteries.

But just as it'd be crazy to follow the advice of a lucky Megabucks winner ("I chose the numbers in my children's birthdates"), so is it foolish to forget that some always will pick stock market winners, or forecast economic trends, purely by chance.

In the long run, they'll almost certainly do worse than if they'd tried to merely match the market through index investing. The Motley Fool has a 60 second way of convincing you of this.

For those who are deeply addicted to stock picking and market timing, there's a 12 Step Program for Active Investors. (Listen to the "musical interpretation" link...clever.)

I've been a fairly serious investor for about twenty-five years. For quite a while I was the type of guy who'd be a Cramer acolyte. I subscribed to investing newsletters, researched stocks, tried to devise foolproof investing schemes.

Until I realized that I was acting foolishly. And started reading about index investing.

Since 2002 we've had a big chunk of our investments in DFA (Dimensional Fund Advisors) index offerings. DFA is a pleasingly geeky outfit. Their approach is highly sophisticated, as you'll see if you take their philosophy tour -- which starts on this page.

I don't claim to understand all the economics jargon. But I do know that I sleep a lot more soundly now that I've given up trying to outsmart the market.

Currently I aim for about a 50-50 mix of equities and bonds. Back in 2002, when I got into index investing, it was 60-40. Here's a chart from Mint showing how we've done compared to the S&P 500 during the past year.

The green shows that we've been outperforming the overall stock market since the downturn began. No big surprise, since our 40-50% share of fixed income investments softens the financial meltdown pain.

As do our index funds (see this Vanguard video), partly since we're not forking out for large fees or transaction costs. The overall result is that we're down about 31% in the past year, while the S&P 500 is down about 47%.

That 16% difference means that we would have done about 50% worse without following a balanced asset allocation and index investing plan. This isn't rocket science -- just simple common sense.

Which is missing from CNBC and Jim Cramer.

They try to sucker viewers into believing that the talking heads on their cable channel can predict what's going to happen with both individual stocks and the overall market.

Warren Buffet says, in less than a minute, that index funds are the best investment for most people. Is Jim Cramer a better investor than Buffet? No way.

Crazy kicker law is downside of Oregon quirkiness

I've loved Oregon's independent streak since I moved here from California in 1971. But being pioneering and one-of-a-kind in the country isn't always something to be proud of.

Let's evaluate some examples of this state's legislative quirkiness.

First assisted suicide law ...great.
First bottle bill ...great.
First statewide land use planning law ...great.
Oregon beach bill ...great. (Hawaii only other state that guarantees public access)
Oregon medical marijuana bill ...great. (Second state to have one, after California)
Ban on self-service gas ...OK (New Jersey only other state with a ban)
No sales tax ...stupid (one of five states without one)
Oregon kicker law ...SUPER stupid 

Well, five of eight "great's" is a good score.

I gave a grudging "OK" to the ban on pumping our own gas because I like to sit in my car and play with my iPhone when it's cold or rainy (which is a lot of the time). But on nice days when a gas station is busy, I'd prefer to be able to do it myself.

It's the last two items that cause Oregon the most idiosyncratic financial grief. And they're related.

Lacking a sales tax, and with property tax revenues limited by Measure 5, government revenues in the state are heavily reliant on income taxes. Obviously these go up when times are good, and down when times are bad.

Oregon should have a sales tax to take advantage of tourist spending and the underground economy. This would help even out the state revenue stream, which is highly volatile.

However, the absolute stupidest thing Oregon does is refund income taxes when the projection of what those taxes will bring in during a two year period is off by 2% or more.

Only one state, quirky Oregon, engages in this insanity -- known as the "kicker" (because income taxes get kicked back to those who paid them).

Conservatives like to say that government should be run like a business. This is a great argument for doing away with the kicker.

What business would refund money to customers who bought their stuff if its actual revenues turned out to be higher than projected in the business plan? Answer: no company that wanted to stay in business.

The Oregonian's editorial board correctly said today, "Bust, boom, bust: Oregon is kicking itself again."

Here we go again, with the state fresh from handing back a billion dollars to taxpayers, ready again to shutter courts, take police off the roads, dent schools and go to taxpayers, hat in hand, for more revenue.

This is dumb, dumb, dumb, yet Oregon can't seem to stop doing it. The question now is, have you seen enough yet? Are you willing to give up the occasional unexpected Christmas tax rebate check -- temporarily -- to allow your state to build an adequate rainy day fund?

I'd like to see the kicker law done away with. But proposed changes to the kicker are moves in the right direction.

Arguments in favor of keeping the law as it is make zero sense.

Right-wingers call limiting the kicker a tax increase, which obviously it isn't. The stupid kicker law simply prevents the state from keeping legitimate tax revenues just because the state economist wasn't able to accurately forecast how much money would come in two years down the line.

If conservatives like the kicker philosophy so much, then they should be willing to forego an unexpected raise or stock market windfall if their family budget didn't anticipate this increased income.

(Here's a cartoon that sums up the kicker craziness.)

Hopefully Oregonians will recognize the wisdom of changing the kicker law. There are times when being the only state in the country doing something means Oregon should stop doing it, because it's a dumb idea.

The first few comments about the newspaper editorial were right-wing talk show'ish nonsensical. I liked how an assistant editor at the Oregonian, Rick Attig, jumped into the discussion with his own cogent comment.

Please give the piece another, more careful read. It says the kicker policy, and the effect of closing schools one year, sending back a big kicker check the next, then shutting down courts and scrambling not to close schools again is "dumb, dumb, dumb." That's hardly the same as calling voters "dumb." Tombdragon, are there any policies this state has that you think are dumb? And if the answer is yes, does that therefore mean that you are calling the Oregon electorate dumb? You all are, of course, free to be as cynical as you want to be about the Legislature or the political leadership in this state about whether they can be trusted to save tax reserves. But that doesn't give you a license to deliberately twist the meaning of our editorial.

Rather than use our blog and the comments we encourage to invite our readers to stop reading the paper, why don't you argue this editorial it on its merits? Why is a public finance system that has wreaked havoc with the state budget over the last 10 years the right one for Oregon?

Rick Attig, Associate Editor

Right on, Rick.

The strange tale of Randi Rhodes and Nancy Skinner

I'm so happy that Randi Rhodes has departed Air America. I liked her politics, but hated her radio talk show style.

(See my "Randi Rhodes is an embarrassment to progressives" and "Air America needs to dump Randi Rhodes.")

I used to have to grit my teeth when I tuned in KPOJ, Portland's Progressive Talk Station, during the late afternoon hours when Rhodes held forth -- egotistical, interrupting callers, unorganized, factually challenged, irritatingly shrill.

(Comments on this blog post echo my feelings about Rhodes.)

Now Nancy Skinner has replaced her.

Skinner is much easier to listen to: calm, well informed, thoughtful, respectful to guests (even conservative ones), focused on events of the day rather than her own self.

What's disturbing, though, is how Skinner came to be on the air in the fashion she is, because this shows the shakiness of progressive talk radio.

Listening to KPOJ while driving home tonight I heard Mike Malloy speaking about how he understood the problem of job losses, because he'd had three jobs recently.

Malloy and Rhodes were syndicated by Nova M Radio, which has filed for bankruptcy. Rhodes was involved in some sort of contract dispute with Nova M.

In a February 16 KPOJ blog post (ALL CAPS, echoing her over-the-top demeanor) Rhodes said she couldn't reveal details about the "disabling event," but assured her listeners that she wasn't responsible in any way for the dust-up that was keeping her off the air.

Here's some additional news and gossip about the Rhodes-Nova M controversy. Apparently Sheldon Drobny, the founder of Nova M and a co-founder of Air America, attempted suicide a few days prior to the dispute.

At first Nancy Skinner filled in for Rhodes. Then, she took over for Rhodes on Nova M -- joining a sinking broadcasting ship.

After Nova M went bankrupt, a company called On Second Thought took over. Its CEO was Mike Newcomb, a doctor from Arizona (I believe). The takeover announcement was made on the Nova M web site, which now is no more.

As is the short-lived On Second Thought, according to Mike Malloy. Now he's broadcasting independently, as is Nancy Skinner -- based on her tale I heard a few days ago about all the work it took to set up a national satellite feed from Detroit.

Malloy said that he isn't being paid, along with most (if not all) progressive talk show hosts.

Conservatives like Sean Hannity make millions, he said, while liberals like him have profit-sharing deals with radio stations. And sometimes even sell ads themselves.

That's sad. Democrats outnumber Republicans in this country by quite a bit. Obama is riding a cresting wave of progressive politics. Yet progressive talk radio is hanging on by a thread.

I don't undertand it. Nor does this blogger, who is equally disturbed at the situation. Unlike me, he wants Rhodes back on the air, and says:

One thing is clear. (NOT channel) If liberal talk radio is going to continue to exist, there needs to be a concerted effort to gather a consortium of “rich liberal” investors to finance it, and they should hire radio PROFESSIONALS to manage it. There are just too many instances where good-intentioned, but inexperianced people buy networks as a kind of hobby and run it into the ground, and the talent WITH it.

I agree, so long as Skinner continues to have a show, and Rhodes doesn't. I'm concerned that Rhodes is still shown on the 3-6 pm KPOJ listing, even though Nancy Skinner is heard during that time.

Please, KPOJ, don't bring back Randi Rhodes. You'll lose this Salem listener again if you do.

Sam Adams "Gay?" video offends some (not me)

From my south Salem viewpoint some sixty miles away from Portland, I feel light years distant from the "Sam Adams is a lying, cheating, despicable bastard!" frenzy that many Mayor-haters continue to engage in.

(To bring those outside Oregon up to speed, Portland Mayor Sam Adams is dealing with a scandal involving a relationship with a fellow gay guy who was 17 when they first met, and 18 when they had sex. Adams lied about the nature of the affair prior to his election last November. Read all about it here, here, and here.)

Today blogger Jack Bogdanski put up "A new low for Portland" post. When I saw the title I wondered what serious blow had befallen the greenest city in America ("a role model for the nation").

Turns out it was a You Tube video from last October called "Randy Leonard's Wild Gay Chase." Leonard is a Portland city council member. My wife and I watched it. Laughed almost continually. Saw nothing offensive at all.

Have a watch.

What we can't understand is how so many commenters on Bogdanski's post found this five-month-old video (in their words) unspeakable, ugly, idiotic, useless, not entertaining, vulgar, pathetic, unfunny, sophomoric, unbelievable, crude, inappropriate, disgusting.

Dudes, you all need to get out more. Spend some time on Comedy Central, where my wife and I hang out a lot. Laugh more and judge less. Loosen up.

Neither the world, nor Portland, is coming to an end because the Mayor, a city commissioner, and rock star Storm Large had some satirical video fun with Adams' gayness for a Portland tradition, Candidates Gone Wild. 

Like I said before...

Portland, realize how fortunate you are. The left-leaning citizens of Salem would be overjoyed to have a sex-crazed 42-year old gay mayor named Sam Adams.

They're stuck with Janet Taylor, who would never be caught doing anything illicit, and also will never be caught leading her town in an intelligent, creative, dynamic, Green manner (I say "they" because we live five miles outside of the city limits).

It'd be crazy if Portland cut loose a competent mayor like Sam Adams just because he tried to keep his on-the-edge-of-propriety sex life private. And, admittedly, out of the campaign for mayor spotlight.

Warren Buffet and me have one thing in common

While I'm waiting for my mood-elevating soma to arrive from the government, I'll try to reduce my financial meltdown anxiety by griping about what the federal stimulus and bailout plans are doing for us, personally.

In short: nothing.

At least, nothing that I've been able to discern from reading all the newspaper and magazine articles with headlines like, "How you'll benefit from the stimulus package."

Well, the only good news is that this makes me feel like a monetary brother to Warren Buffet, investing guru extraordinaire.

Our net worth and economic knowledge are vastly different, but both Warren and me are ticked at how financial failures -- corporate or individual -- are getting a much better deal than the rest of us.

Here's how Buffet sees things:

Funders that have access to any sort of government guarantee -- banks with FDIC-insured deposits, large entities with commercial paper now backed by the Federal reserve, and others who are using imaginative methods (or lobbying skills) to come under the government's umbrella - have money costs that are minimal.

Conversely, highly-rated companies, such as Berkshire, are experiencing borrowing costs that, in relation to Treasury rates, are at record levels. Moreover, funds are abundant for the government-guaranteed borrower but often scarce for others, no matter how creditworthy they may be. ... Though Berkshire's credit is pristine -- we are one of only seven AAA corporations in the country -- our cost of borrowing is now far higher than competitors with shaky balance sheets but government backing.

Yeah, that's just how I feel. Still-solvent individuals are getting screwed just as much as successful firms like Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway are.

On the income side, money market interest rates are down to just about zero. Our interest-bearing checking account paid us 41 cents last month, even though we had an average daily balance of several thousand dollars.

I feel like telling West Coast Bank, "just keep your damn money." At the end of a year the CEO can buy himself a fancy large latte with the picayune interest. That way somebody will get some evident benefit from it.

Recently Vanguard reported it is closing Treasury money market funds to new investors because the yields are so low.

Money market investors across the industry have seen yields on their funds decline sharply in recent months. For example, the average yield among U.S. Treasury money market funds was only 0.15% as of December 31, 2008, down from 2.71% at the end of 2007 (source: Lipper Inc.). For a hypothetical investor with a $10,000 money market account, that's an annualized difference in income of $256.

So retirees and others who have acted responsibly, building up a decent nest egg of cash, now are getting hardly any income from their savings since the Federal Reserve has reduced short term interest rates to nearly zero.

Searching for a bright spot in the financial meltdown gloom, I figured that if we're getting just about no interest on our savings, then we should be able to borrow money for just about nothing.

Not exactly. Rates for a home equity line of credit are running between 4% and 10% at the MAPS Credit Union that we belong to. Home equity loans, between 5% and 10.6%.

That seems pretty steep, given how little financial institutions are paying out to depositors and, as Buffet says, how minimal money costs are to them.

Meanwhile, failed corporations like AIG keep on raking in big bucks from the government (which means us, the taxpayers, ultimately). This morning I heard Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tell a congressional hearing, "AIG was able to grow up without any adult supervision."

That was a nice off-the-cuff remark regarding necessary regulation. However, it doesn't negate the fact that the Federal Reserve chairman says AIG acted irresponsibly.

Yet still has gotten $150 billion from the government.

We need a new well. Not wanting to deplete our cash reserves, we're considering borrowing the money for it. It'd be nice if the stimulus or bailout packages threw us a financial bone that we could chew on.

But since we're retired, we don't get a break on payroll taxes. Since we aren't behind on mortgage payments, we don't get low-cost financing. Since we aren't a failed corporation, we don't get an infusion of capital.

What we get is next to zero interest on our savings, and a hefty comparative borrowing cost. Plus being able to watch our net worth sink along with the stock market.

Things would be a lot worse if Bush were still in office, or if McCain had won last November. Still, I'm waiting for the Obama economic bump.

Or failing that, a big box of soma to support my psyche through these tough times.

Stock market down -- we need a soma high

Contemplating today's continuing stock market meltdown, which is bearing a disturbing resemblance to the Great Depression, thoughts of soma started running through my anxiety-soaked head.

Remember soma? It's a drug featured in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." Wikipedia recaps a book that I read a long time ago:

All members of society are conditioned in childhood to hold the values that the World State idealizes. Constant consumption is the bedrock of stability for the World State. Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug, soma, which is probably a historical allusion to a mythical drink of the ancient Aryans. Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "vacations".

Sounds pretty damn good right now. Bring on the soma, Obama.

I'm ready for a brave new world. Recently I've said to European-style socialism, bravo. Ditto to legalizing (and taxing) marijuana. Unfortunately, it's going to take a while before we get there.

This is why, in the interim, the government needs to keep our brains from exploding with thoughts of We're fucked! (which is pretty much all that I hear on cable news and see in the newspaper these days).

Thus, the need for soma.

Simply redirect a few billion dollars into emergency pharmacological research from all the money that's being thrown into financial bailouts, most of which doesn't seem to be doing any good.

A drug without negative side effects that makes you feel really good about whatever is happening...bring it on. Along with the World State. Who cares about freedom and democracy if we've got soma on the shelf?

If you're not convinced that soma is for you, here's a nice collection of soma-related quotations from "Brave New World." After seeing today's Dow Jones closing value, this passage appealed to me.

"And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is."

Cool! It sure would be nice if soma was available now. The same Huxley web site that provided the quotes has an article that speculates about what soma might be.

The substance that goes by that name has a rich ancient Vedic history. But religion or mythology isn't what the world requires now. We need a real drug that will make us look at our IRA, 401k, or brokerage house statements and think, Ah, so fine.

So just as the Obama administration is encouraging (or forcing) the auto industry to switch gears, this also needs to be done with the pharmaceutical industry.

There's plenty of soma-precursors for researchers to study and learn from. They need to get to work, pronto. Next time the Dow drops 300 points, I want to be in a Brave New World state of mind.

"Swallowing half an hour before closing time, that second dose of soma had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds."

Legalizing marijuana would boost the economy

Way to go, Tom Ammiano. He's a California assemblyman who has introduced a bill to legalize marijuana in his state.

AB 390 would decriminalize pot but regulate it like alcohol, limiting sales to those 21 and over. It would also impose a tax of $50 per ounce—something Ammiano said could bring $1 billion annually into our cash-starved state.

The bill doesn't have much chance of passing, given the United States' irrational drug policies. But it's a much-needed step in the right direction.

Recently New Scientist ran a story, "Radical alternatives proposed for cannabis controls," that described why legalizing marijuana makes both scientific and societal sense.

What should we do to minimise the harm cannabis can cause to the health and welfare of users and to society at large? One answer, according to a report by a group of prominent academics and government advisers, is to change the law to allow the state to prepare and distribute the drug for recreational use.

This proposal is the most controversial of several recommendations from a commission assembled by the Beckley Foundation, a British charity dedicated to exploring the science of psychoactive substances. "The damage done by prohibition is worse than from the substance itself," says Amanda Feilding, the founder of the Beckley Foundation.

Click on this image to see the relative harm of cannabis, tobacco, heroin, and alcohol. It makes absolutely zero sense that the least harmful substance, cannabis, is illegal while tobacco and alcohol are blessed (and taxed) by governments.

The NORML blog keeps track of marijuana-related legislation and other policy initiatives aimed at bringing this country out of its crazy Reefer Madness! mentality. It was good to see that the Obama administration is going to put a stop to federal raids on state medical marijuana providers.

I also found "10 Reasons to Get High About Marijuana in 2009." Excellent.

If the Oregon legislature ever takes up a bill to legalize the selling of marijuana, I'll go to a hearing and present myself as living testimony in favor of cannabis' harmlessness. For a couple of years during my San Jose State college days, 1966-1971, I was stoned nearly every day.

Yet I got great grades, nearly all A's. My friends and I drove our cars and motorcycles all around the Bay Area, with nary a marijuana-fueled accident on our record. Nobody ever had the slightest desire to try hard drugs -- just other varieties of psychedelics.

Most perusasive of all in these difficult economic times, we contributed mightily to local restaurant profit margins. Those midnight munchie runs to Denny's put a lot of money into corporate pockets, and tips in the waitresses'.

Bring on European "socialism" -- the U.S. is ready for it

Driving back to Salem from Portland today, a single glance across the median of I-5 gave me a vision of how much better this country could be if we became more Euro-socialist (I prefer the term, "communitarian").

A car had stopped in the break-down lane. Next to it was a pickup with a seal on the door. I'm pretty sure it was one of the vehicles that helps drivers who are out of gas, or otherwise need assistance.

A government vehicle.

With that glance, a warm feeling of Wouldn't it be great if this act of governmental kindness extended across our whole society? rolled over me.

If people who needed health care were guaranteed they'd get it.
If losing your job didn't entail the risk of being tossed out onto the streets.
If getting a good college education was available to all, poor and rich alike.
If public transportation made it possible to get around without private cars.

Whenever friends come back from Europe, they extol the way of life there. The United States is horribly backward in so many ways, compared to the rest of the industrialized world.

I'm ready for some European style socialism. So are a majority of Americans, given the results of the past few elections. We're tried of unfettered individualism and irresponsible capitalism.

Bring it on, President Obama.

Where does money go in a financial meltdown?

When investments tank and lots of people are losing money, does this mean that a small number of fat cats are making money?

This question came in for quite a bit of discussion at our house last night. We hosted the monthly meeting of our Salon discussion group, where we talk about whatever is on people's minds.

And right now losing money in the financial meltdown is front and center in most American psyches.

A few in our group were convinced that somebody has the money they've lost in the stock market. "How could it just disappear?" they said. "It has to be somewhere, which means someone is profiting from our losses."

Fortunately, we had a retired economics professor, Russ, in the room, or we could have kept on arguing about this all night.

Because common sense argues for the "one person wins, another loses" financial view. After all, if you drop a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk, and a guy behind you picks it up, you've lost $20 and he's gained the same amount.

But Russ pointed out that this is erroneous when it comes to investments -- which behave differently from cash in your pocket or a checking account.

The value of stock, or a home, can simply disappear. No one has to buy and sell it, even though buying and selling is one way the value of an investment is determined. Note: one way.

There are other ways, Russ said. We've seen these happening a lot the past few months, such as when bad economic news triggers a sharp decline in the stock market.

Share prices may open lower in the absence of buying and selling. If I understand correctly what Russ was saying, it is new information about likely future profits that reduces investment values.

Yes, sometimes it is possible to trace where the money goes in a series of stock trades. In this case the amount of money made by some is balanced by the amount lost by others.

However, this Associated Press story presents a broader and more accurate picture of what's happening in a financial meltdown.

Whether you're a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, if you have a 401(k), a mutual fund or a college savings plan, tumbling stock markets and sagging home prices mean you've lost a whole lot of the money that was right there on your account statements just a few months ago.

But if you no longer have that money, who does? The fat cats on Wall Street? Some oil baron in Saudi Arabia? The government of China?

Or is it just — gone?

If you're looking to track down your missing money — figure out who has it now, maybe ask to have it back — you might be disappointed to learn that it was never really money in the first place.

Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a "fallacy." He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money — it's simply the "best guess" of what the stock is worth.

This also is the answer given in today's Parade magazine "Ask Marilyn" feature by Marilyn vos Savant. She says that lost investment value in the stock market never existed in the first place, because it is based on what shares would theoretically sell for.

Makes sense.

For one thing, if the last transaction of a company's shares occurs at a $100 trade value, this doesn't mean that everyone who owns those shares could completely sell out at that price.

Obviously all that selling would drive down the price, just as every house in a neighborhood may be worth $500-600,000 -- but if each owner puts a "For Sale" sign up at once, almost certainly they won't get what they think their investment is worth.

Here's another answer to the question "When the stock market crashes, where does the money go?" Same conclusion: nowhere, because it never really existed.

The money does not "go" anywhere. It is literally lost. Stock market money is mostly a store (measure) of value, not a medium of exchange. When the value of a stock goes down, the money by which it is measured simply disappears.

Remember that money, especially as a store of value, is a matter of faith: it cannot be exchanged for anything tangible (e.g., gold or silver) except in a market in which the value of products is largely a matter of faith. The value of money in the stock market is based on faith in the value of the stocks that the money represents. So when the value of the stocks declines, the money that measures the value of the stocks declines by the same amount. No one gets the money that is lost. It simply evaporates.

Well, it's reassuring to know that someone else doesn't have the money that my wife and I have lost in the meltdown.

But it sure would be a lot more reassuring to get the money back.

Let's make Obama Philosopher-King

I'm ready to turn over control of our county to Barack Obama. For a while. Not permanently.

It just seems like we need a really wise Philosopher-King right now, one dude who's in charge of things and doesn't have to deal with fools in Congress.

In time of war we have a Commander in Chief. This economic crisis deserves a similar temporary turning over of leadership control to a single individual who does whatever is needed to preserve and protect the United States.

Now, I realize this is a fantasy.

Minor details like the Constitution prevent the President from ignoring Congress and issuing Philosopher-King edicts. But I wish such could happen.

Yesterday it was inspiring to watch Obama handle his first presidential press conference with confidence, dexterity, eloquence, and aplomb. Paul Begala, CNN analyst, summed up the difference between Obama and Bush:

It was a very serious press conference about serious issues.  And I give him very high marks.  Yeah, he talked a little long, but you know what a relief after George W. Bush.  Watching Bush complete a sentence is like watching a fat, drunk guy cross an icy road…you just knew he wasn’t going to make it.  And this guy has at least some command over the issues.

Well, much more than "some command." Obama had an in-depth grasp of what needs to be done to get us out of our current economic malaise.

I've got a lot of confidence that Obama, backed up by his all-star administration team, could lead the United States into a dramatic recovery within a few years. But right now he's having to move in a direction set by people with minds much less savvy than his.

Namely, members of Congress.

Being one of the millions who contributed to Obama's campaign, I just got a message from Organizing for America, which has taken over his vast email list. It began with:

Last night, President Obama gave his first-ever prime time press conference to call for immediate action on his economic recovery plan. Today, the Senate voted to pass the President's plan.

Wrong possessives.

It's not the President's plan. It sprouted from the semi-competent psyches of the House Democratic leadership, then was pruned and twisted out of shape by even more clueless Senators.

Obama could have done much better. And should have. Apparently his vision of collegial bipartisanship stopped him from saying at the start, "This is the way the stimulus bill has to be."

Wish he had.

Who suspected on election night last November, when Democrats surged to victory, that three Senate Republicans would be calling the shots on an economic stimulus plan in February 2009?

I don't want Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter deciding how to get the United States economy back on track. Yet there they are, warning that if they don't get their moderate Republican way, they won't vote for the stimulus bill and supply the sixty votes needed to get it past a filibuster.

On the front page of the Portland Oregonian today I saw a headline that said, "Compromise in D.C. cuts money Oregon officials desperately want."

The story talks about how $400 million for school construction, teacher salaries, and such won't be coming to Oregon if the three Republicans aren't overruled. Hopefully they will be.

A New York Times editorial gets it right.

When members of the House and Senate sit down this week to craft a final version of their differing bills, they must include the most-effective provisions — those that provide powerful stimulus and help those Americans who are most in need.

There is a decent deal to be had in negotiations. Whether Congress and the administration get there will depend a lot on Mr. Obama’s leadership and his insistence on a better bill.

As does Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who called the moderate Senate Republicans "the destructive center."

What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?

A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished.

Right on. Obama should do the Philosopher-King thing and say that he'll veto any stimulus bill that doesn't do X, Y, and Z.

Let the Republicans take the responsibility for pushing the economy off a cliff (or rather, off a steeper one). I suspect their filibuster threat would evaporate. If not, so be it.

As the Times editorial said:

For rather than acknowledge the failure of his political strategy and the damage to his economic strategy, the president tried to put a postpartisan happy face on the whole thing. “Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands,” he declared on Saturday, and “the scale and scope of this plan is right.”

No, they didn’t, and no, it isn’t.

Stimulus bill debate shows weirdness of Republicans

I'm doing my best to be open-mindedly bi-partisan as I follow the debate over the stimulus bill, just as my man, President Obama, is asking of the country.

But it's tough. Real tough. I listen to Senate Republicans talk about how they see the economy getting back on track and I can't help but think ... that's so freaking weird!

They don't seem to live in the real world.

Today I heard Sen. John Thune holding forth on cable news about his utterly wacky plan to scrap the entire $936 billion Senate stimulus bill and replace it with an equal amount of tax rebates for 182 million Americans.

Thune said that individuals could spend the money better that government could.

When his interviewer pointed out that previous tax rebates intended to stimulate the economy didn't do very much, because people saved much of the windfall rather than spending it, Thune said that saving it would be fine also, since banks need to be recapitalized -- lacking money for loans.

That's not true, of course. Banks are sitting on lots of money. They're reluctant to make loans for other reasons.

The biggest Republican weirdness, though, is the overall view conservatives have of our society.

Like Thune, they only see individuals merrily spending their way along, buying whatever they like -- big screen TV! a new car! golf clubs! -- without any connection to a larger community.

It's ridiculous to think that individuals always can spend money more wisely than government.

People buy lots of useless crap. I do it all the time. When my taxes go into state or federal coffers, there's a greater chance that something valuable will be bought that benefits everybody.

Like improved roads that we all travel on. Like better schools that our children are educated in. Like medical research that will enable all of us to live longer, healthier lives. Like green energy technologies that will help the country be much more independent of foreign oil.

There's no "us" in the conservative Republican view of the U.S. It's all about me, me, me -- letting individuals spend money however they want to, while the infrastructure fabric that binds our culture together becomes more and more threadbare.

I don't want to live in a Me FIrst society. Most Americans don't. They recognize that we all sink or swim together, which is why Obama was elected so handily last November.

Yes, we can.

We can pass a stimulus bill that will help everybody in this country, not just a favored few. We can remember -- after eight long years of Bush era forgetting -- that every individual is part of a societal whole.

Yes, we can.

Advice from Salem for Sam Adams: don't resign

Sam, don't resign. That's my advice -- and it's been echoed by every progressive friend I've talked with here in Salem over the past few days.

Based on blogospheric news this afternoon, I'm glad to hear that you seemingly are going to stay on as Portland Mayor and not let the Prude Patrol chase you out of office.

There's lots of ways to look at your involvement with a 17-18 year old gay guy, and your subsequent efforts (a.k.a. "lying") to cover up the sexual nature of this relationship.

Here's how things look from my vantage point fifty miles or so south of scandal central.

Portland, realize how fortunate you are. The left-leaning citizens of Salem would be overjoyed to have a sex-crazed 42-year old gay mayor named Sam Adams.

They're stuck with Janet Taylor, who would never be caught doing anything illicit, and also will never be caught leading her town in an intelligent, creative, dynamic, Green manner (I say "they" because we live five miles outside of the city limits).

It'd be crazy if Portland cut loose a competent mayor like Sam Adams just because he tried to keep his on-the-edge-of-propriety sex life private. And, admittedly, out of the campaign for mayor spotlight.

Politicians are entitled to lie for good reasons. Based on opinion pieces like this one, the Resign Sam! feeding frenzy mainly seems to be founded on Adams not telling the truth when he was asked, prior to election day, about his relationship with the marvelously named Beau Breedlove (if Beau goes into gay porn, he won't have to take on a nom de plume).

I keep hearing, "This isn't about sex. It's about Sam Adams not telling the truth." Also, "If Adams hadn't lied to voters, he wouldn't have been elected."

OK, let's ponder the implications of those statements.

They're contradictory, which led Adams into a double-bind situation that justified his dissembling. If this isn't about sex, but rather lying, like so many people claim, then if Adams had told the truth about bedding an 18 year old it shouldn't have had much effect on his campaign for mayor.

Yet the same people also say that if Adams had told the truth, Portlanders would have been repulsed by a middle-aged man having (legal) sex with a teenager and many wouldn't have voted for him.

This shows that it really was about sex, which Adams -- savvy politician that he is -- realized. So he lied about his relationship with Breedlove, knowing that judgmental, prudish voters would punish him at the ballot box.

Imperfection is an asset, not a liability. Sure, in an ideal world politicians would always tell the truth. And citizens would always cast their vote for good reasons unrelated to a candidate's sexual predilections.

But this isn't an ideal world.

Those who want it to be so aren't in tune with reality. They're adrift either in a fundamentalist religion fantasy realm, where everybody obeys a moral code issued by God ("Thou shalt not lie"), or a secular utopia that's equally unrealistic.

People are complex creatures.

Especially talented, high-strung, intelligent, creative men like Sam Adams -- plus Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, Gary Hart, and any number of other middle-aged males whose passion for life (and politics) spilled over into a passion for out of wedlock or barely-legal sex.

Europeans understand much better than we do that an elected official's policies are the important thing, not with whom he takes his pants off. A British commentator  wrote:

Britain is sliding towards an American style of politics, where we obsess about the "character" of our politicians rather than their policies. This is new. Just 40 years ago, we had a Prime Minister - Harold Macmillan - who famously said: "If you want personal morality, talk to a bishop, not a politician". Few British people disagreed. (It's probably just as well: Lord Boothby was having an affair in the Downing Street flat with Macmillan's wife, Dorothy, and also sharing young boys with Ronnie Kray).

...Of course, character and personality matter to some limited extent - but only insofar as they shape policy. Margaret Thatcher's stubbornness, for example, matters because it made her incapable of reversing catastrophic policies such as the poll tax. But to suggest that David Blunkett is more likely to lie because he has slept with a married woman is to disregard even the most basic history. Does Franklin Roosevelt's adultery undermine the New Deal? Does Adolf Hitler's fidelity to Eva Braun tell us much?

Politicians who can't be imagined doing anything other than sticking to the "straight and narrow" (I'm thinking George Bush) likely are going to be similarly unnaturally rigid with their policies.

I'd much rather have my president, or mayor, be wild and crazy in the bedroom and passionately intelligently creative in the policy arena.

I'll end with a bit of philosophy from Alan Watts that supports my Stay On Sam moral position:

The real goodness of human nature is its peculiar balance of love and selfishness, reason and passion, spirituality and sensuality, mysticism and materialism, in which the positive pole has always a slight edge over the negative.

(Were it otherwise, and the two were equally balanced, life would come to a total stalemate and standstill.)

Thus when the two poles, good and bad, forget their interdependence and try to obliterate each other, man becomes subhuman -- the implacable crusader or the cold sadistic thug.

It is not for man to be either an angel or a devil, and the would-be angels should realize that, as their ambition succeeds, they evoke hordes of devils to keep the balance.

This was the lesson of Prohibition, as of all other attempts to enforce purely angelic behavior, or to pluck out evil root and branch.

Last chance for some Bush bashing

Starting tomorrow, everything in the United States (heck, the whole world!) is going to change.

Change, change, change. Obama's inauguration is going to bring some wonderful a'changin (just like his campaign did).

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

So I've got to get in my last Bush bashing today.

Because soon I'm going to be caught up in the Wonderful World of Obama where everything is going to be so much better, I might forget how much I disliked what Bush did to the country the past eight years.

Stephen Colbert is fond of saying, "Bush, a great president...or the greatest president?"

Whenever I hear that I translate it into, "Bush, a bad president...or the worst president?" There's good reason to choose the latter.

He's been a disaster for this country, aside from a few small semi-successes like No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and increased AIDS prevention funding.

Remember the good economic times Bush inherited at the end of Clinton's presidency? The budget surpluses? The respect America had around the world? The pride people took in having a national leader who could speak eloquently and wisely?

Bush flushed all that down the drain.

Looking back, it was totally predictable. Bush is a fool. An intelligent fool, yes, but a decent IQ and an Ivy League education doesn't prevent someone from being a functional imbecile when it comes to managing a country.

When I see Bush on television these days he looks just like Alfred E. Neuman to me. Clueless. Especially about how clueless he is. What? Me worry?

Oh dear God, yes. We clear-thinking, left-leaning Americans worried. From November 2000 right up until now. We were correct.

Not about everything that Bush would screw up, but pretty darn close. If you're one of the few Bush-defenders left in this country, keep this in mind if my ranting seems overblown.

Progressives feel like they've been shouting "Fire, fire!" for eight long years while pointing to flames shooting out of a building.

A majority of voters heard the call in 2000, but one judge on the Supreme Court gave the presidency to Bush. He got an actual majority in 2004, which simply goes to show that you can fool most of the people some of the time.

Now, finally, Americans have woken up, largely because of Barack Obama -- with a lot of help from a loud economic meltdown alarm clock.

I was pleased to read today that even "In McCain Country, Obama Acceptance Grows." I'm confident that he's going to turn out to be a genuinely great president. Maybe even the greatest. (Colbert is going to have to find a new joke.)

Obama is going to bring this country together in a way that Bush was incapable of, given his cluelessness and incapacity to string together words into a coherent thought.

In that warm spirit, I'll end with some George Bush positivity. Hmmmm. Let's see...

I'll give Bush credit for doing a decent job on preventing another terrorist attack on American soil. We haven't had one, so he did something right here. Yes, Bush and Cheney trampled on the Constitution in the process, but this doesn't take away from the fact that another 9/11, though anticipated, never occurred.

What else? Well, I just learned that Bush likes fart jokes. So do I. Hey, we've got something in common.

Hopefully he'll get an iPhone loaded with iFart as a leaving-office gift. I like the idea of him sitting at home in Texas laughing hysterically to electronic farts.

He's so much better suited for that than being president of the United States.

Digital TV changeover will hurt many rural viewers

Since we watch television via satellite (DISH network now, DirecTV soon), the February 17 changeover from analog to digital won't affect us -- since satellite already uses a 100% digital signal.

However, quite a few rural viewers are going to find favorite stations disappearing in a few weeks, even if they've gotten a converter box that allows an old television to tune in digital TV (new televisions have a built-in digital tuner).

Harry, a HinesSight regular who, like me, lives in rural Oregon, made me aware of this problem recently via email. He wanted me to complain about the changeover.

Digital reception sucks the dripping bag around here. Where we could watch a so-so quality analog signal; with digital, its either go or no go.I would like to know how many folks are just simply going to lose the ability to watch TV.

And no, I am not going to pay. We got our converter box and erected the biggest TV antenna you have ever seen. We get Ch 22. Period. Even channels that are REALLY sharp in analog; nothing. "No signal"

Will you consider ripping on this subject? I would like to see a 2 year extension on analog.

Glad to oblige. Didn't Descartes say I blog, therefore I rant (or something like that)?

First, since Harry wasn't an Obama supporter I can't resist pointing out that here's an issue he and Barack agree on. The Obama transition team is calling for a delay in switching from analog to digital TV transmission.

Before writing this post I had to educate myself some on the issue through the University of Google.

I learned that the digital go-or-no-go Harry mentioned is called the "cliff effect." Because your reception falls off a sharp cliff into unwatchable land if you live quite a ways from a digital transmission, or are in a valley beyond a TV tower's line of sight.

With analog signals you can have a sort-of-watchable signal. I remember this from my childhood days, since we lived in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains and got a fuzzy picture at best.

But you could watch it. With digital, though, the picture is either there or it isn't, as Consumers Union points out.

The all-or-nothing nature of digital broadcasts also comes into play. With analog stations, a weak signal can still yield a watchable picture—it might be snowy or have ghosts, but you'll get a continuous picture and uninterrupted sound.

If you're getting marginal reception of digital signals, both the picture and sound might freeze or break up to the point that it's not watchable. If you're really on the fringes—either too far from a tower or with too many obstacles in the way—you'll see a black screen that says "Weak or no signal."

Apparently this is happening with Harry. I feel for him.

And for millions of other Americans, many of them low-income, who are going to get screwed over when the digital changeover happens and they suddenly find themselves watching a big blank nothing on TV.

I'd been under the impression that the main problem was the feds running out of money to fund the coupon program that lowered the cost of getting a conversion box. (People now are being put on a waiting list to get the coupons.)

I hadn't realized that some rural residents won't be able to get a watchable digital signal even if they've gotten a box and upgraded their antenna, as Harry has.

Over the air digital TV doesn't travel as far, or as well, as analog TV. There are resources that help a person choose the best antenna for their location. But if you live in a digital broadcast desert, no antenna is going to bring in the analog stations that you used to enjoy watching.

Unfortunately, there's a chance no antenna will work for you. Recent reports indicate that some households are in fringe areas with poor reception, and for them, off-air digital TV might not be a good option.

That leaves them with an expensive "let them eat cake" (cable or satellite service) option. Or to go television hungry.

I don't know what the solution is. Seemingly nobody does. So it seems reasonable to do as Obama suggests: put the digital changeover on hold for a while.

Study the situation some more. Give rural and low-income people more time to adjust to digital over the air broadcasting.

If you've lost your job, the last thing you need is to lose your free TV also.

Let's put atheism back into Christmas

We're not Christians. We've stopped putting up a Christmas tree. We don't like Christmas music, especially songs that mention Jesus or God.

We're also patriotic Americans. We believe in the separation of church and state. So we applaud the Freedom from Religion Foundation's placement of an atheist display in the Washington state capitol.

Who can disagree with what it says?

“At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Well, lots of people. Most people.

Which is why it's so important that the display have its place alongside a nativity scene. Public places, like a state capitol, can't be limited to only private citizens who hold majority views.

Christians are free to worship as they like, without interference, in their homes and churches. But if they want to promote their religious belief in the public square, they should expect some dissenting company.

I was glad to see that the man who got the state to allow the nativity scene says that the atheist display is fine.

He feels that people can make up their own minds about what to believe. That's a broad-minded Christian attitude. Contrast that with what I heard a dogmatic true believer say in a radio interview.

I believe in Jesus Christ. If you don't that's OK, because you're going to fry like a Jimmy Dean pork sausage.

Oh, how loving.

That's why I'm not religious: I can't believe in a God who punishes people for being rational, questioning, and non-dogmatic.

So let's bring atheism back into Christmas. Pagans started this holiday and we shouldn't forget the true meaning of it -- which has nothing to do with Christ.

Spend your money before the financial meltdown takes it

[Pseudo-legal disclaimer: This blog post is being written under the simultaneous influence of a strong cup of coffee and a glass of pinot noir. The financial advice it contains should be considered questionable, at best, unless you are under the influence of a more powerful psycho-active substance. Then likely it'll make as much sense to you as it does to me.]

I just came up with a great financial recovery plan for the United States. Even more, the world!

People need to realize that if they spend their money themselves, they can beat the stock and housing markets to the punch. Meaning, if anybody is going to make our money disappear, it should be you and me.

We need to take control of our own financial meltdown. Don't let distant markets and shadowy traders reduce your net worth to a fraction of what it used to be.

You can do it yourself! Get empowered!

This marvelous economic insight came to me this afternoon as I was leaning against the doorway of our downstairs bathroom, listening to my wife and Darren Gollakner (a talented guy who makes cool stuff) discuss remodeling plans.

Since we'd already remodeled our upstairs bathroom, which I mostly use, I felt detached from the conversation. It didn't matter much to me what they came up with.

But being the Hines household's payer of bills and prime overseer of our steadily shrinking retirement portfolio, my inner cash register was paying attention to the cost of the remodeling project that was being hatched before my otherwise mostly uncaring eyes.

Then I heard myself blurting out to Darren, "We've decided to give our money to you before the stock market can take it."

Laurel and Darren looked at me quizzically and went back to their plan-hatching.

However, as so often happens to me (this is why I'm a blogger), I was immediately struck by the brilliance of the fleeting thought that had darted through my mind.

Now, the more I thought about it -- on a subsequent dog walk -- the more logical holes I could identify in my one-sentence economic recovery plan. So naturally I've decided to ignore those holes and focus on my intuitive, though possibly illusory, sense of genius.

Economists and legislators are worried sick that people have stopped their spending ways. Americans are afraid to buy stuff when they see home values, stock prices, and jobs disappearing.

Well, they need to ponder (not too much, and preferably after consuming a stiff drink) my profound advice: Get rid of your money on your own, before something else takes it.

Look, if you've already spent your money on stuff you want, you can't lose it. It's already gone! You've got no worries!

(Also, no money, but let's not worry about that for the moment; have another drink and this blog post will make more sense to you.)

Plus, you've got the stuff, like a remodeled bathroom, that the money you no longer have brought you.

So your preemptive strike against an additional financial downturn -- spend it before you lose it -- has succeeded on two fronts: (1) You've inoculated yourself against a decline in your net worth by reducing it on your own, and (2) You've bought stuff that you can enjoy while eating rice and beans and waiting for your house to be foreclosed.

What's the downside?

(Again, please focus on the big picture here, which will be clear if you don't think too much about extraneous economic details, such as your personal bankruptcy.)

Well, I'm pleased that I've been able to do my part in getting our country back on track. If President-elect Obama's financial recovery team wants to use my ideas, they're most welcome.

All I ask is that the strategy be called the Brian Hines Spend It Before You Lose It And Make America Prosperous Again Plan (wordy, but I'm open to edits so long as the "Brian Hines" part stays).

Big news coming on Sarah Palin's pregnancy

Thanks to Jack Bogdanski, I've had my interest rekindled in the Sarah Palin fake pregnancy story.

His post led me to a titillating "More coming soon!" on the Palin's Deceptions blog.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, one of my very hard working research assistants has uncovered a piece of evidence which may well turn out to be the final nail in the coffin. I believe it demonstrates conclusively that Gov. Sarah Palin was never pregnant. It has nothing to do with Bristol, or Willow, or anyone else. Because it is so critical, I am proceeding slowly with this one... talking to my attorney among other things. But watch the blog over the next 24-48 hours. You won't be disappointed.

Oh, I have been...watching the blog. Forty-eight hours is up tomorrow night. Hope there won't be a letdown.

I scrolled through all of the comments on the teaser post, looking for hints of what might be coming. This seems to be a plausible guess:

If you ned to check with an attorney, I am guessing that you have some concerns regarding the publication of medical records which show that Sarah Palin had either a tubal ligation or a hysterectomy before Trig was born, which would be conclusive evidence unrelated to Bristol or anyone else. Since you appear confident that you will be able to make the information public in the next 24-48 hours, I therefore also assume that the information you and your assistant have uncovered has previously been made public, perhaps as part of a long ago medical records disclosure by Sarah Palin when she ran for some other public office or was appointed to some other public position. If this is the case, it is quite commendable for you to be so careful,and bravo for your outstanding detective work!

Though I'd love to see Palin caught in a lie, there would be a downside: she'd be much less likely to run for president in 2012.

The more she's adored by the Republican base, the more I like it. Sarah Palin is unpopular with all but the most right-wing voters.

She dragged down McCain, and she'd drag down herself if she got the Republican nomination next time around.

(Here's a sample of the extensive Palin pregnancy research conducted by the Palin's Deceptions blogger. The associated website has more juicy details.)

Financial fear reflected in kitchen cupboard

Here's another unsettling leading indicator for the stock market: a large 50.8 oz. bottle of organic, extra virgin, first cold pressed olive oil that I managed to cram into our cupboard with about 1/8 inch to spare.

I usually buy another brand. In a smaller bottle.

But yesterday, on my weekly natural food store shopping expedition, I noticed that Napa Valley Naturals was on sale. I figured I could save almost ten dollars by buying super-sized olive oil.

This isn't like me. Not to that extent.

Laurel is picky about the taste of olive oil. We'd settled on Spectrum as a brand we liked. When I brought home the Napa Valley Naturals bottle, she said "Maybe it won't taste as good."

"But we saved ten bucks," I told her.

All over the country, I'm sure, people are acting similarly. I've always looked for a good deal, but never before have I felt so anxious about preserving our money -- because the stock market and housing bust has taken away such a big chunk of our net worth.

When I go to Starbucks now, usually I ask for a grande Pike Place cup of coffee rather than a venti skinny vanilla latte, my habitual drink. I'm saving $1.50 or so every time I feel a need for a caffeine fix.

That doesn't make a huge difference in our household budget, but it gives me a sense (illusory though it may be) of having some control over our financial future when I read headlines like today's "Markets dive in last hour, carving new lows."

Checking the New York Times web site a few hours later, I saw that the story had been replaced with "Stocks drop sharply and credit markets seize up."

Oh, thanks for the news. I was under the impression that the $700 billion bail-out was doing something to reassure the credit markets. Guess not.

As a new bout of fear gripped the financial markets, stocks fell sharply again on Thursday, continuing a months-long plunge that has wiped out the gains of the last decade.

The credit markets seized up as confidence in the nation’s financial system ebbed and people rushed to put money in Treasuries, the safest of investments. Some markets are now back to where they were before Congress approved the $700 billion financial rescue in October.

Not to depress the spirits of the auto industry further, but I'm rethinking our car purchase plans.

A three-year lease on our Toyota Highlander Hybrid is up in January. We'd envisioned turning the car in and either leasing or buying a 2009 model, maybe the spiffier Limited version this time.

However, now I'm not sure that even 0% financing (which isn't available on Toyota hybrids, but is on other models) would entice us to get a new car.

The financial meltdown is just too damn scary. I feel like circling the household budget wagons, not going out on any unnecessary limb.

Our current car is fine, just not ideal.

"Fine" is sounding, well, just fine -- compared to forking out the bigger bucks that it would take to do anything other than keep our present vehicle. Multiply us by millions of other scared shitless consumers, and you've got the makings of a dismal selling season.

I've been investing, seriously and semi-seriously, for over twenty-five years. I've never felt so uneasy about our portfolio -- and we're not major risk takers.

Retirees that we are, we're about 50-50 in equities and fixed income, with a healthy percentage of index funds in each category. So however much the stock market has dropped, our investments are down only about half as much (bonds and Treasury bills are increasing in value, as investors snap them up).

"Only," though, is still a hell of a lot.

Amazingly, I read in the first NY Times story about the market decline:

And a new report that jobless claims had crested to their highest levels in 16 years reminded investors that the frail economy continues to weaken.

“We think it’s going to continue to go lower,” said Ryan Detrick of Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “We don’t think people are scared enough. They’re just not showing enough fear. People are numb to this, they’re almost immune to it.”

Well, I beg to differ.

It's more that people know they can't do anything about it, so when I learned that yesterday the market was at its lowest point in six years, and today it's down to the 1997 level (below earlier bear market lows), I was as much resigned as fearful.

What will be, will be. And whatever happens, I can buy cheaper bottles of olive oil and less expensive coffee, plus hold onto our car instead of getting a new one.

I just wish that somebody competent was handling the federal government's response to this crisis, instead of the Bush administration bunglers.

Where is George, by the way? Has he headed off to his ranch early? He sure isn't doing anything to reassure people that the economy won't be completely melted down by the time Obama takes office.

Which can't come soon enough for me. And, I suspect, for the stock market.

Surprise! Republicans make sense...on auto bailout

The first coming of Obama is near. Praise the One!

For he is bringing miracles to pass: I watched "Meet the Press" this morning and agreed much more with Sen. Richard Shelby, a dyed-in-the-right Alabama Republican, than with Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat.

Maybe this is a sign that the country is getting past red state vs. blue state stuff. When the policy rubber hits the road, what matters much more is whether something makes sense.

And Shelby had the edge here. Why should taxpayers fork out $25 billion or more to give to the clueless Detroit auto industry?

First of all, I think that we would have to see conditions that would fundamentally change the way Detroit does business.  They're not building the right products.  They did at one time.  They've got good workers.  But I don't believe they've got good management.  They don't innovate.  They're a dinosaur, in a sense, and I hate to see this because I would like to see them become lean and, and hungry and innovative.  And if they did and put out the right product, they could survive.  But I don't believe the $25 billion they're talking about will, will make them survive.  It's just postponing the inevitable.

Amen to that. I haven't owned an American car since the 1970s, when some insane impulse led me to buy a crappy Ford Fairmont. After that, never again.

We're a happy two-Toyota family at the moment, both of them hybrids (a Prius and a Highlander). Detroit chose to keep on making giant SUVs and pickups because they were more profitable than smaller cars. Until people stopped buying them.

And now the Big Three, who have shrunk a lot, want the federal government to reward them for making bad business decisions.

Not surprisingly, Rust Belt Democrats like Levin are on board with that. Republicans like Shelby aren't. This is one of those rather rare times I tilt toward the "R's" rather than the "D's."

In an LA Times opinion piece, "Earn the bailout, Detroit," Douglas Olin explains why lavishing cash on the auto industry won't work without getting a lot in return.

Maybe it's time for America to buy some broad-based social benefits in return for public investment in these companies. If the U.S. government -- on behalf of the people -- is going to spend considerable sums of public money and incur public debt to keep these institutions alive, let's insist on returns that benefit society as a whole, not merely Big Three shareholders, management and employees.

What might these public benefits be? Well, for one, isn't it time for Detroit to turn out a car that gets at least 100 miles per gallon -- and to do it in three years? Couldn't we demand, in return for public money, that management deliver dramatic new fuel economy standards, with appropriate rewards for success and sanctions for failure?

Since transportation (mostly autos) generates one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, can't we demand auto fleets that systematically reduce carbon dioxide emissions, perhaps the 30% by 2016 proposed by California?

The Vice Chairman of General Motors in charge of product development has called global warming a "crock." Yet this know-nothing expects taxpayers to ignore his astounding ignorance about a fundamental factor affecting car design and sales, and throw billions down a GM black hole.

I'm confident that Obama won't fall for this, though he'll face pressure from auto industry-friendly Democrats like Levin to write the Big Three a blank check. He's said that he won't do that.

And these statements sound pretty good to me.

Allowing the U.S. auto industry to fail is not an option, President-elect Barack Obama said in an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes that aired Sunday night.

"For the auto industry to completely collapse would be a disaster in this kind of environment," Obama said. "So my hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all of the stakeholders coming together with a plan — what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?"

Not like it does now, that's for sure.

Merkley vs. Smith: follow who's winning

In Oregon the biggest remaining election question mark is the U.S. Senator race between Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith. Votes are still being counted.

Here's how to track them, in order of my political junkie preference:

(1) Over at Blue Oregon, Kari Chisholm is doing a great job analyzing which counties haven't fully reported yet, and what this means. He's updating this post regularly. Currently Smith is up by almost 8000 votes, but Kari is projecting a 32,000 vote Merkley win after Multnomah and other Merkley-leaning counties completely come in.

(2) The Daily Kos Electoral Scorecard features a map that's a lot of fun to play around with. Click on "Senate," then Oregon, and you can see how many precincts have reported in each county. There were some glitches in this AP-based map earlier (Multnomah was incorrectly shown as 100%), but hopefully they've been fixed.

(3) KGW is keeping track on how the Senate race is going. No analysis, but the numbers change frequently. It looks like they're using the AP figures in (2), so far as I can tell.

Update: Jack Bogdanski also is analyzing how the returns are going. He's not quite as optimistic as Kari, but still projects a Merkley win by around 15,000 votes.

Election jitters: my fate, and $84, hangs in balance

2:51 pm, West Left Coast time
Ooh! First polls close in less than ten minutes. I'll be watching CNN to see if they call it for Obama by 3:05. Sure hope so. I'd rather pay $84 than have a foreshortened life.

Yesterday I talked with a Macintosh consultant about coming over to get a wireless laser printer working with my MacBook. He said he could come at 4 today. I told him that I'd be obsessing over election results at that time. We made an appointment for Thursday morning.

"That way," I said, "I can save myself your $84 hourly fee if Obama loses, since I'll probably have committed suicide by then, not being able to face the prospect of seeing Palin play at being vice-president for four years."

Interesting note: he said that every Macintosh owner he knows is for Obama. Mac sales have been on the uptick recently, so hopefully this bodes well for an Obama-Biden victory. We'll know soon.

Updates on my mental health will follow after I get back from a dog walk and see what CNN has to tell me.

4:49 pm, Oregon time
Geez. Two lousy states called so far on CNN. Whoopee.

I want instant results! And gratification! Call the damn thing for Obama. I want to go to our Tango class at 7:30. If Obama isn't declared president by that time, I'll be seriously distracted.

Of course, if you remember "The Tango Lesson" (movie), there's a scene where an Argentine couple is talking about Tango. "It's about life," says the wife. "And death," adds the husband. "It's about love," she says. "And hate," he chimes in.

So I guess I can express my death and hate feelings through dance, if Obama is doing badly. I'd rather the hour be filled with life and love, though.

6:35 pm, irrelevant part of the country time
Ohio goes for Obama. Florida looks like it's in the "D" bag. I'm going to be dancing with joy soon. Literally. Only (mild) problem: once again the West Coast will be a presidential election afterthought.

I took a look at Fox News, just to relish how the unfair and unbalanced anchors were dealing with an Obama victory. I saw one of them talking with Karl Rove about how the only way McCain could win now would be if a solid blue state flipped.

They agreed that if Oregon somehow went for McCain, they wouldn't be able to report it, because they'd be passed out on the floor from shock. Yes, won't happen. Obama will win my state by double digits, I can almost guarantee.

CNN's John King just said that it would take a miracle for McCain to win. Likely there's a lot of Christian fundamentalists praying for that right now.

Won't happen.

We'll go to the Marion County Democrats election party after the Tango class. Now the fun will be to see how well the Dems do in Oregon. We need to get rid of Sen. Gordon Smith. It's embarassing that blue Oregon has the only Republican senator on the West Coast.

McCain voters, please save our sanity

If you're thinking of voting for John McCain, consider this: you're running the risk of vastly increasing mental illness in this country. Mostly of the depressive variety, though I wouldn't rule out major psychotic breaks if your man wins next Tuesday.

So be compassionate. Vote your values, Christian or otherwise. Perform a selfless act. Help those in need.

Like, my wife and me. We were just talking about what it'd be like to spend the next four years watching Sarah Palin mangle the vice-presidency, while McCain dodders his own way along.

Laurel thought that she'd have to stop reading the newspaper, watching TV, and listening to the radio. Probably even that wouldn't be enough, because her friends would be keeping up with news about the McCain-Palin administration and couldn't help blurting out what's happening.

Thus a vote for McCain could end up producing a recluse who spends her days wandering around our house, muttering to herself. How did it happen... what went wrong... Oh Obama, where have you gone...

Sure, this isn't likely to happen. The odds are less than 3% at the moment. But this is how depressive insanity strikes: when people's guards are down and the future looks oh-so-rosy. Until, it isn't.

Since the core of McCain's support comes from conservative fundamentalist Christians, I'm asking those poised to vote for him to consider: What would Jesus do?

Wouldn't he give of himself to fulfill the needs of others? Wouldn't he lift up the poor, the lame, the infirm, the Obama supporters teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown?

Absolutely.

Jesus would say, "Brothers and sisters, support Barack even if your heart is with John. For he who surrenders his vote in the name of loving compassion shall be rewarded a hundredfold. Including getting your taxes reduced if you make under $250,000."

If Obama loses, which some say could only be due to one bad thing, my descent into madness likely would take a different turn from Laurel's.

I'd still immerse myself in the media. To assuage the pain of seeing Palin and her sidekick, some sort of numbing would be necessary. Alcoholism or drug addiction, probably. Maybe both, just to make sure that I don't feel the horror.

I'm trying to take some preventive measures -- hoping to inoculate myself against the 3% chance of McCain making it into the White House by reading "10 Reasons Why McCain Might Win." Most don't make sense, fortunately for my future mental health.

However, I'm begging potential McCain voters not to take any chances. Keep Obama-supporting Americans like me and my wife off of a depressive slide into a progressive black hole.

Vote for Barack. You may not be happy you did, but we sure will be. Remember: it's better to give than to receive.

Republicans depressed about an Obama win -- I feel your pain

With a week to go before the election, I'm having a burst of compassion for the many conservatives who are seriously depressed about the prospect of watching Barack Obama in the White House for the next four (or eight) years.

Believe me, I've been there. My wife too. We've felt your pain. In 2000. And again in 2004. So here's some advice from a progressive who didn't know if he could make it through a George Bush presidency:

You'll survive. When you wake up on November 5, the sun will still rise. Still, for a while you'll feel like there's nothing to live for, that the bottom has fallen out of your political life. You won't be able to understand how so many people voted for a second-rate candidate who, obviously, is going to drag this country down. Take a deep breath. Relax. Tell yourself: "this too shall pass."

That's what I did. And now it's happened. George Bush and John McCain are poised to pass out of the national awareness.

A new day is about to dawn, one where progressives dance and sing, while conservatives contemplate moving to a state with assisted suicide (that would be Oregon, where I live; but I'm sorry -- you have to be terminally ill to use the law, not just terminally depressed).

On cable news I've seen McCain supporters saying things like, "This country can't survive if Obama wins." I think to myself: My friends, we're on the same wavelength. You're just eight years behind my speaking the same words.

With a minor substitution: "Bush" for "Obama." I was wrong in 2000 and 2004, because the United States has been strong and resilient enough to make it through the mal-administraton of one of the worst presidents ever.

So Republicans, buck up.

I'm confident that Obama is going to be one of our best presidents. It's not going to take long for you to realize that your fears have been unfounded. And every time you see Joe Biden do something vice-presidential, be thankful that it isn't Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

Yikes! That thought is so scary, I'm not sure what I'd do if it became reality.

Often progressives say, "I'd move to Canada." They may not mean it, but it makes them feel better to know that there's a way out of a national nightmare. There's a problem for conservatives, though: where do they go if Obama wins?

It isn't readily apparent what country is the equivalent of Canada for right-wingers. Fortunately, Chris Wilson of Slate has come up with some answers in "The Conservative's Canada: Where can Republicans threaten to move if Obama wins?"

Israel. Poland. The Cayman Islands. Or Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong. Australia and Ireland are other possibilities. Not as easy to get to as Canada, but each has some characteristics that would help sooth a conservative's Obama-stressed soul.

Personally, I like the idea in this article that disgruntled Republicans head north to Alaska, where they can soak up Palin's persona and pretend that she's V.P. rather than Governor.

(Another possibility: join Republicans for Obama and be happy the next four years.)

Obama doesn't spread my T-shirt wealth

I'm relieved! Barack Obama isn't a socialist. Here's the proof: me wearing an Obama-Biden t-shirt that arrived in the mail yesterday.

(A bonus proof -- that progressives have some smarts: another photo taken with my new MacBook in front of a mirror, which reflected the reflected words back to normal.)

I'd been worrying that the Obama campaign had decided to spread my t-shirt wealth with someone in a lower donation bracket, just as McCain has been saying he'd do with our taxes. Months ago I made a contribution to Obama after I'd gotten an email saying that if I donated now I'd get a "first edition" t-shirt.

My daughter got hers a long time ago. I figured the election would be over by the time mine came. So it was thrilling to open our mailbox and find a squeezable package.

Only problem is, I've inspected every corner of the t-shirt and can't find any mention of "first edition." Guess it won't be the collector's item that I'd hoped for. The label does, however, say "Made in USA" (been a long time since I've seen that on clothing) and sports a United States flag.

This is more proof: that Obama isn't anti-American, as a Republican congresswoman has claimed. Man, I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this t-shirt.

It's been a good week for Obama, as well as for my t-shirt drawer. A judge threw out  a ridiculous lawsuit by Philip Berg claiming that Obama isn't an American citizen. I heard Berg being interviewed on a right-wing talk show. He was convinced that the lawsuit was going to give the election to McCain.

So much for that loony plan. Berg could have saved himself some trouble by heading over to FactCheck and reading their take on the He's not a citizen! smear effort.

They've inspected Obama's original birth certificate and have posted photos of it, complete with a close-up of the raised seal testifying to its authenticity. None the less, delusional McCain supporters are still spreading the lie that Obama's birth certificate is missing.

Well, they're entitled to their fantasies. Which includes the notion that Obama is going to lose the election. (McCain has a 3% chance at the moment; even conservative stalwarts are jumping ship.)

No complacency, though! Vote for Obama! Donate to Obama! Volunteer for Obama!

I want to be sure that I get to wear my t-shirt to a victory party on November 4.

Palin is failin’ to help McCain

Oh, how sweet is the karmic delight! Everything that voters once found so right about Sarah Palin now is turning them off.

A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that Palin is people's biggest concern about voting for McCain.

Fifty-five percent of respondents say she's not qualified to serve as president if the need arises, up five points from the previous poll. …In the survey, 47 percent view her negatively, versus 38 percent who see her in a positive light. …Now, Palin's qualifications to be president rank as voters' top concern about McCain's candidacy - ahead of continuing President Bush's policies, enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich and keeping too high of a troop presence in Iraq.

Sweet. I'm turning Obama! Obama! cartwheels at this marvelous turn of events. Every day, it seems, there's a new reason to turn away from Palin.

This is a good summary of the sundry screw-up's and "can you believe it?" expressions on the face of American voters. I've also done my own cyberspace walk through the not-so-wonderful world of PalinLand today.

Front and center, of course, is her $150,000 Fashiongate scandal. That's what was spent in a single month to dress up Palin, who tries to claim that she's just an average hockey Mom.

Yeah, right. Her clothing budget in September was four times the median salary of an American plumber. Sarah, please say "elitist" while you look in the mirror.

If you're into fashion, it's entertaining to browse through some photos of what the $150,000 bought (about halfway down the page). She should win the expensive high-heeled shoe vote, for sure. Those high boots also are cool. And how adorable – her daughter carries a Louis Vuitton bag!

You also can see what $8,700 worth of makeup consultations  brought to Palin. (Excessive blush, in my utterly non-professional opinion.) And learn her favorite "hockey Mom" stores: Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

An LA Times fashion critic says

Voters must find it unfathomable for Palin, who has been presented as a woman "like us," to spend that kind of money on clothes in these difficult financial times, to see her speaking so passionately about Joe the Plumber while plumbing campaign coffers for Valentino jackets and pencil skirts. And yet, they've eaten it up, tittering on chat sites about Palin's Kawasaki eyeglass frames and her Naughty Monkey red peep-toe pumps.

… You also have to wonder how it feels, as a woman, to have everyone know that you really have been dressed up and trotted out like a beauty queen for the American public to wag their tongues at. Caribou Barbie indeed.

Well, at least she's giving answers befitting her beauty queen background. Palin still doesn't understand what a vice-president does, even though she thinks it'd be cool to be one. No, the VP isn't in charge of the Senate, Sarah.

And somehow she manages to find socialism lurking behind Obama's middle class tax cut, excoriating him for wanting to "spread the wealth," while sucking up redistributive income from the Alaska Permanent Fund – a massive transfer of wealth from oil company royalties to every non-felon Alaskan.

Yes, Palin presides over the People's Republic of Alaska. So she shouldn't be throwing socialist stones at Obama when she lives in such a glass house state of unearned wealth spreading.

Obama poised to whip McCain’s butt

McCain said he was going to whip Obama's "you know what" in the last debate. Wrong. He lost, big time. Just like he's going to lose the presidential election in a few weeks.

Yes, I realize that Obama is telling his supporters to act as if they're behind, rather than ahead.

That's good advice. And my wife is taking it to heart, in a general Democratic sense, since she's been phone-banking away the past couple of days – making calls for Oregon candidates, plus Obama.

Here's a good sign: Laurel told me that after Colin Powell enthusiastically endorsed Obama yesterday, she found that more people were willing to talk with her about why they should support Obama.

We watched Powell's Meet the Press appearance and came away much impressed. Compared to McCain, Palin, and other flyweights, he's a thoughtful Republican with gravitas and substance.

I don't see how any independent voter could listen to Colin Powell and not say to him- or herself, "Obama's my man." Judge for yourself.

Currently FiveThirtyEight judges that Obama has a 93% chance of becoming president. Pollster has him with almost as big an electoral vote lead. Gallup shows Obama up 11% with registered voters, and 9% with an expanded set of likely voters. Obama also leads by 9% in Ohio, an important swing state.

McCain and Palin's only hope is that Americans are idiots. Good luck with that. They're trying to pin a Socialist! label on Obama, but that's not going to fly. After eight years of Bush, people have developed refined bullshit detecting skills.

Heck, real socialists say that Obama isn't one of them. As the story points out:

"Obama is about as far from being a socialist as Joe The Plumber is from being a rocket scientist," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. "I think it's hard for McCain to call Obama a socialist when George Bush is nationalizing banks."

McCain shows his economic ignorance by equating Obama's "share the wealth" comment with socialism. He doesn't realize that a progressive tax system, where people who make more money pay at a higher rate, is designed to share the wealth.

What is social security? Sharing the wealth. What is Medicare, Medicaid, low cost student loans, and McCain's own health care plan (along with Obama's, naturally)? Sharing the wealth.

What would be the point of government social programs if they left people needing help in exactly the same economic position, because, god forbid, some money flowed from the more fortunate to the less fortunate?

Isn't that what love is? Giving. It's bizarre that taxaphobic conservatives have made sharing one's wealth into something wrong rather than oh-so-right.

That's one reason, among many, why this country needs Obama so badly. Come November 5, a new day dawns.

Love is … paying taxes

A month ago Joe Biden was unfairly bashed by Republicans for saying that those making over $250,000 a year should view paying more taxes as patriotic.

He was right, but didn't go far enough. Everybody should see paying taxes as patriotic.

It's so obvious. Where the heck does the money come from for government funding of our military, roads, public schools, scientific research, Medicare, Social Security, and the other programs that keep our country strong?

Taxes, almost entirely.

So I don't understand the conservative notion that not paying taxes is a badge of honor. The way I see it, it's a mark of me-me-me selfishness.

Barack Obama wants middle class people to get a tax cut. Those making over $250,000 a year, like the temporarily famous Joe the Plumber (if his business dream ever becomes reality) would see their marginal tax rate rise from 36% to 39%.

Great idea.

Say Joe made $300,000. He'd pay 3% more on the $50,000 over $250,000. That's $1,500, ½ of 1 percent of Joe's total income, which would go to help pay for the pressing needs facing our country.

He should love to fork out a little extra, since he can afford it. And I wish Obama would use that very word more often when talking about taxes:

Love. We often say, "It's better to give than to receive." Isn't that the essence of love, giving of yourself?

Yet when it comes to giving to people less fortunate than us through taxation, many resist – wanting to keep their money for themselves, figuring, I guess, that getting another flat screen TV is a higher social value than improving the health of low income children.

Today McCain and Palin basically said that Obama is a socialist for wanting the rich to pay a little more in taxes. Well, if that's true, then Ronald Reagan was a socialist. Also, George H.W. Bush.

It's pitiful to see the McCain-Palin campaign reduced to name-calling. The further they sink in the polls, the more desperate they become to pull Obama down.

They haven't realized yet (but they will on election day) that voters are hungry for honest positive talk about how the United States can bounce back from the current financial crisis.

Obama is saying that McCain is "out of touch." In Missouri 100,000 people agreed with him, showing that love and patriotism trumps name-calling.